


Skeep

by Rise_Of_The_Valkyries



Series: Beloved [4]
Category: No Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:07:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23558092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rise_Of_The_Valkyries/pseuds/Rise_Of_The_Valkyries
Series: Beloved [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1695574





	Skeep

"Is that a hickey?"

Kurt's mom asked it lightly so the kids wouldn't hear, but Kurt sucked in an exhilarated breath.

It's not like he'd forgotten that Blaine had been macking on his neck, because truthfully, that was kind of one of his hot spots – but he'd been kissing right over his collar bone, right? Not in the middle of his throat for all to see. His hand flew up automatically. Just with the light touch of his fingertips, he could feel Blaine's mouth there, demanding on his skin. With a sheepish jerk, he tugged his collar up.

"Wow, okay," she said, taking that as a confirmation and blinking. "... Okay."

"Sorry," murmured Kurt, face warm. "I –"

"You didn't have that this morning, did you?"

"No," he admitted, wondering if she would also notice that he'd come home in his gym shirt instead of his blue hooded shirt, which was tucked in his gym bag, stuck to itself and probably reeking with come.

She shook her head and handed Kurt one of the sticks of celery she was peanut buttering for Stevie and Stacey.

"I have to meet this guy. All of a sudden you're coming home with gigantic cuffs on and huge red bruises on your neck..."

Kurt folded his lips in tight. He knew his mom was probably plagued with memories of being called into Brookside Academy For Boys and sitting there in the headmaster's office with him and with the captain of the lacrosse team and his mom, and of Kurt having to say in front of all of them, He tried to dom me in the shower. Not cool.

And of the lacrosse captain calmly saying, That's total bull, Evans. I know the rules. I wasn't trying to dom you. Sir, he was checking me out. I looked over at him and he was looking at me with big sub eyes, so I went over to tell him to quit cruising me.

I wasn't – I wasn't looking, I wasn't cruising. I'm not a sub, Kurt had tried to say, annoyed, but the guy had just kept talking.

He freakin' flipped and shoved me. Next thing I know, my skull's hitting tile. Those showers are freaking slippery, moron. I could've gotten brain damage, and then where would the team be?

That part had been close enough to the truth, except for the guy hadn't exactly been coy about his junk, and Kurt hadn't exactly been coy about looking at it, either. He had an awesome body that Kurt envied and kinda found attractive, and no qualms hanging around in his jock strap after practice, holding sweaty court. The guy was just that type that loved being the center of attention, and if he called out Kurt's name, Kurt always responded. But the whole thing was still a tangle of confusion to him. To this day, Kurt didn't understand how the guy had thought that meant he was up for literal grabs. Even now, he had both feelings of arousal and fear about about it.

Somehow, even though he was remembering that whole situation and the minefield boarding school had been for him, Kurt felt good. He was collared now.

"Blaine really wants to meet you too," he offered.

"Oh! That's good. We'll have to set something up," she said thoughtfully. Kurt nodded, and she shook her head, still looking a bit perplexed but also a little more at ease, like she was simply attempting to accept the new status quo.

With an apologetic smile, Kurt put away his celery stick in two bites and slid towards the bathroom, shutting himself up in it.

As always, he ignored his mom's pantyhose drying on the towel rack and all the other evidence his entire family was sharing the smallest bathroom ever. Turning on the depressing yellow light, he immediately stretched his neck, searching in the mirror for what his mom had seen. And there it was. Sort of under his tee's collar, but sort of not, this visibly discolored patch of skin. It did look like a red bruise. He huffed, sort of shocked and turned on, and pulled at his collar to see it in its full glory.

It wasn't actually huge, but... he really hadn't realized Blaine had given him an actual hickey.

Suddenly he was panting in the small bathroom, grateful for Stevie and Stacey to be absorbed in Nickelodeon or whatever just in case his breaths were anywhere near as loud as the walls made them sound.

God, he was so... happy – lucky – amazed – thankful – unworthy.

Dizzy, eyes wide as he stared at it carefully, he touched it again with careful fingertips, raising that ghost of the sensation of Blaine's warm mouth traveling up the column of his neck and back down into that dip, and the pleasant weight of Blaine flattened along him, heavier than Quinn or Santana but still light in a way, keeping him steady and anchored. His belly tugged with automatic arousal thinking about it.

It hardly seemed real. Sort of like after they'd had sex the other afternoon, Kurt's thoughts seemed to haze out and become difficult to grapple with, indistinct beyond a sharp, deep desire for... that. To be with Blaine in that kind of way. To be wanted and to be used. Even though he could sense that it wasn't what his Dom had intended, Kurt had still been allowed to see Blaine's cock, and touch it the way Blaine wanted him to, and make it spurt all over him, and between that and this lingering suck mark and the cuffs so visible and public on his wrist, Kurt felt...

Well, he was trying not to moan. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to stomp down that rising feeling of wanting to crumple in ecstatic submission. He felt so owned. If he thought about it much more he might spontaneously combust right there in the bathroom, leaving his worn Converse behind.

"Get it together," he mouthed to himself. "Pretend you're in school."

Standing there, he grasped for memories of snapping the tip of his pencil off in geometry and getting up to sharpen it, and the wisp of Mr. Kidney's huge broom going by in the hallway, and of trying not to fall asleep in English. He tried not to let in thoughts from the past few days; they weren't any good for calming down. He thought of Mrs. Hagberg's bald spot, staring up at the styrofoam planets in the astronomy classroom, and the squishiest sloppy joe imaginable served in the cafeteria. Yeah, that worked.

Kurt pulled his t-shirt up, paranoid, to stare at his stomach.

He'd gained a little weight since they'd been here. He wasn't getting a workout from football every day anymore, and his diet had suffered a sea change when they'd lost their house. He'd lost that definition he'd worked hard to achieve preparing for Rocky Horror. After Valentine's Day, he'd kind of started neglecting himself anyway, sensing that his Domme didn't really care if he had a slice of pizza. Santana hadn't seemed to notice. The only real attention she'd given him was some "real talk" about how he kissed like his lips were two slugs he was just wiping all over her face. He thought maybe her first act as his Domme was teaching him to kiss her just how she wanted, but apparently she'd just been drunk, because that evening of making out at Rachel's party had definitely been a one-time thing. Then he had become Blaine's, and that was that, and he'd never looked back on his basically terrible week with Santana.

Kurt turned to the side and tensed his belly, looking for abs, but he'd officially downgraded from a six pack. He couldn't believe Blaine could look at him and like what he saw. Was that why Blaine had told him to leave his shirt on?

Well, he just had to work harder. He had to get it tight. He'd do crunches tonight. All the crunches he could manage.

It didn't help that he felt tired.

Exiting the bathroom again, Kurt headed for his spot: his sleeping bag. Sometimes it got rolled up during the day, but today it was just as he'd left it the night before, and he couldn't wait to faceplant and tune out, just for a little bit.

"Gonna take a nap," he mumbled, dropping to his belly and grabbing at his limp pillow.

"Did you hear your brother? Stacey? Stevie? Don't jump on Kurtmy, okay? He's taking a snooze."

"Isn't he gonna sit us?" Stacey asked, concerned.

"He will later, caterpillar. Come get your ants on a log."

"I don't like celery," Stacey complained.

"Kurtmy loves it," his mom said.

Stacey groaned reluctantly, obviously feeling Kurt was not an ideal role model. "Love" was, indeed, a gross overstatement of his feelings about celery, but. Kurt was mentally muting everything around him already. He just wanted to... think... Cut his tie to reality and be gone for a little while...

Subbing out in front of his family had yet to be something he could do without feeling a little weird and guilty, even though he did it almost every day. The past few days, he was doing it more often than not, even though he knew it was wrong. He had to hope that as long as they didn't know what he was doing, what he was thinking about, it wouldn't hurt them.

When Blaine had first taken him from Santana, Kurt had barely been able to process anything going on in his head. There was a lot to think about every day, but there was no pocket of time that was his own. Except at night. After his family all went to bed and the lights were off, it felt a little like his mind was actually alone, even if his body wasn't. Kurt depended on that precious ten minutes of hardcore zoning out before his mind inevitably clicked off into sleep, and used it to think all about his Dom and belonging to someone new and all the things Blaine told him every day. He thought about the small things he started noticing, like that Blaine kept extra-firm-hold hairspray in his locker and used lots of different-colored pens. He committed things carefully to memory, like Blaine's class schedule and his top five Madonna music videos. Everything seemed so important, because he could tell having a guy for a Dom was a lot different, but didn't know what a Dom like Blaine expected from him, exactly.

Especially after he started talking to Blaine on the phone every night, Kurt had virtually nothing else on his mind by the time he hunkered down to sleep. Bedtime turned into the one time of day where his mental walls slumped, exhausted, and he let himself have all kinds of thoughts... arousing thoughts and embarrassing thoughts... while lying face-down on the floor mere inches from the bed where his parents were asleep.

He wasn't proud of it. But he was trying so hard to keep up in school; he had to pay attention or he got totally lost. If he let himself think about it in the van while he was out on delivery, he always got all kinds of turned around and had to call back to the store for directions. He didn't have his own room anymore. Showers were short-lived affairs here and he shared the bathroom with four other people, so he had to be smart and frugal about time spent in there. He wanted to think about Blaine so badly, it just took over him at night.

Living in one room with his family hadn't really impacted his, like... masturbatory habits, in the words of his Dom. At that point, he'd had months of practice successfully suppressing the urge. Sometimes he floated off so far that he would find himself rubbing his boner through his sweats, but as soon as what he was doing fully kicked in, he always stopped. He knew it wasn't really kosher to be chubbed and steeped in perversion around his family. But Kurt wasn't trying to be a bad person. He just couldn't help it, and he tried his best to hide it, always lying on his belly and keeping stone cold still. So for weeks now, he lay in his sleeping bag every night and succumbed to the riptide in the only somewhat personal time he had.

He thought a lot about the bath Blaine had given him the morning after Rachel's party. Especially the first couple of weeks after Blaine had taken him into consideration, he had played the whole thing on a frantic loop in his brain, the single hottest and yet most humiliating thing he'd ever experienced in his life.

Somehow that was saying a lot. After all, he'd blurted out Coach Beiste's name when Quinn dommed him, and everyone had found out about it. And, um, guys at boarding school had seen him in pretty unflattering lights before. One had tried to dom him, and one had submitted to him, and both experiences had left him really confused and feeling like a jackass.

But he'd never been so aroused and utterly naked at the same time, both skin-wise and sub-wise, as when Blaine had told him to undress, then led him into that tub full of bubbles. His body had felt dumb and he'd managed to sit in the bath easy enough, but inside he was shaking from the emotional adrenaline of daring to ask Blaine to take him as his submissive and the fact that Blaine had done so. He remembered staring up at Blaine and hoping, hoping, hoping for – he didn't know what. Blaine had been really polite and actually bathed him like he was a kid or something, soaping him up all over and commenting about how tall he was. But he had ignored Kurt's hard-on, even though it had been raging. Kurt had been totally on edge, waiting for him to make some kind of comment about it, or maybe even touch it, but... he hadn't.

Thinking about it always put Kurt right back in that bathtub, breathing too harshly and dick too hard; he'd been afraid, but not in the instinctive, defensive way he'd been when he'd shoved the lacrosse captain away from him. He'd been anxious, worried about his body and worried Blaine might give him the kind of quelling look of annoyance that Quinn had often given him when he had a boner.

In the weeks after, Kurt had desperately fallen prey to all kinds of fantasies about that bath, even though he didn't know whether Blaine would ever want to do anything more with him than Quinn had. Because there wasn't the traumatic idea of teen pregnancy lingering around the idea of sex, and maybe because of the things that had happened to him at boarding school, Kurt's brain kicked into sexy hyperdrive like never before. He'd had fantasies about the chaste soaping turning into Blaine jacking him off in the water, with Kurt's knees splashing water over the sides of the tub and Blaine being unbelievably generous to him, letting him come. But that seemed so, like, unlikely and selfish. So more often than not he had fantasies that Blaine would touch him – maybe just a couple of light soapy strokes to clean him off, or maybe more purposefully – but not let him come at all, continuing along his body and totally ignoring Kurt's shameful need no matter how hard and groany Kurt was. Maybe that was all he was used to getting, even from himself, but it seemed to go with the eternal ache of his gut that only faded in the dreary mornings and the cold reality of where he was.

He didn't just think about the bath. He wanted to touch Blaine, too, please him, serve him.

It had been hard to imagine, even though his mind was plucky and persistent, fueled by his total scoping of the situation every time he saw his Dom sporting signs of wood. With his parents and siblings all wheezing softly in their sleep next to him, Kurt had lain and wondered about Blaine's dick, torturing himself because he didn't know if he'd ever be allowed to see it. Blaine never came onto him, never put a single move on him, but he got aroused by Kurt, too, and it drove Kurt up the wall so crazily.

Kurt liked guys' bodies. He knew that. He liked the way they looked. Sometimes he just appreciated the way they maintained themselves, muscles packed on, or he liked something about their shape or individual quirks. Sometimes he felt kind of like he liked someone's body too much, but didn't know how it made him feel other than kind of skittery and weird. He'd seen enough dudes' junk to last a lifetime, which kind of helped fill in desperate mental blanks, but they were just not good enough, not right enough.

Blaine was the opposite of the kind of dudes Kurt had hung around most of his little league and boarding school life. He wasn't muscular in the Kurte ways, just like he didn't dress the Kurte way and didn't dom like they tried to dom. He was sort of a mystery to Kurt. He was super attentive and had this undeniable air of Dom that Kurt intrinsically, animalistically would've followed to the ends of the earth. But he didn't expect Kurt to do anything but his homework, or sometimes eat something specific in front of him. He asked Kurt to walk with him to class. He asked Kurt to call him after work. But he didn't demand head every day. He never had Kurt bend over. He didn't instruct or invite Kurt to do anything physical for him or to him, or even seem to think it was important or a thing that Doms and subs needed to do together. It was very confusing, in a different way than other guys had been confusing to him. At Brookside, D/s relationships and physical relations were against the rules, but plenty of it went on anyway, or at least there were a lot of rumors and crap.

Totally aware that dick service was definitely a thing guys wanted – especially because he had lips that attracted a lot of smack talk about it – Kurt had developed an immediate response, applying it to Blaine. If Blaine would ever let him, Kurt could do it. He could give him head. Maybe even every day. He had hated it when guys at Brookside made jokes about his lips and talked about what they were good for. But that indignant feeling had done a total one-eighty with Blaine. Now Kurt always just about sproinged if he imagined getting on his knees for his Dom. Nothing turned him on harder or faster. He had no idea why, but he knew that with Blaine, even just imagining it, he felt so excited and so squirmy; he wanted to do it. He wanted to please Blaine. He wanted to be a pleasing sub.

Of course, that was all just in Kurt's private frenzy of subby bedtime thoughts. In reality, Blaine was the only guy who didn't take one look at Kurt's mouth and judge him by it.

Anyway, no matter what his body wanted, Kurt had also often felt very content just to think himself to sleep about how Blaine had told him his locker combination. He'd drifted off to fantasies about touching Blaine's lock and holding his books, and the biggest sense of unfulfilled pining he had those nights was to be allowed to help Blaine from his jacket. Would Blaine let him do that? Touch his clothes? Blaine was so particular about his outfits. Thinking about being given a privilege like that was all it took to make Kurt feel blissed out. He didn't even need to actually think about the distant idea of sex with his Dom to feel aroused in his submissive soul.

So the fact that Blaine had actually had sex with him, which Kurt hadn't seen coming any more than Blaine had, made for a lot for him to need to sub out about.

Kurt was so used to suppressing and denying his body that it seemed extremely nonsensical as part of the fabric of his reality. It felt more like a wet dream. He was getting a little better at realizing he really had been allowed to have his Dom's cock in his mouth; he really had spread his legs to show his Dom how much he belonged to him. The euphoria he'd been drowning in at the time made it almost impossible to recall with any logic or clear-headedness. But Blaine had added to the pile by taking Kurt aside at school.

He knew Blaine must be trying to help him. It felt really good. Not just coming – of course that felt good – but Blaine showing interest in him, continuing to dom him when Kurt felt so much like he was having all kinds of problems being a good sub for him. It felt like maybe Blaine really was going to train him.

While his little siblings chomped on their snacks and watched cartoons and his mom cut coupons out of the newspaper, Kurt thought about Blaine telling him about being in his sleeping bag, being excited and being very hard, but being very good and not humping the floor or anything. He remembered Blaine saying he liked feeling Kurt so hard, and savored the words desperately, touching and feeling and tasting them over and over in his mind. He was so lucky. He was so, so lucky. He did want to be good and Blaine knew it, but he also needed to come all the time, and Blaine knew that, too... and Blaine knew that he wouldn't. He would hold off. Kurt would be good.

Delirium kicked in within thirty seconds. He heard his breath puff lightly against the pillowcase and slowed his breathing with careful deliberation, The Penguins of Madagascar and the slamming car doors of someone out in the parking lot just white noise. Blaine's words echoed in his head.

Poor little sub! You don't have privacy.

*

Saturday night, New Directions held their benefit concert.

It was a serious flop.

Sunshine Corazon didn't show. There were only six people in the audience, and one of them was Blaine, and they were all in a super bad mood or something, and yelled and booed at Tina until she ran off the stage in tears without having finished her weird song. Miss Holliday and Mr. Schuester's wack vibes were all over the place, and Miss Holliday's performance was kind of a downer. Mercedes left halfway through and almost didn't come back. Rachel eventually went and found her, and she closed the show bombastically, but the whole evening was kind of a roller coaster.

Nevertheless, Blaine held Kurt's hands backstage before and after and told him to sprain an ankle (Kurt mentioned he was pretty sure it was "break a leg"; Blaine chuckled and told him he was right).

In the end, the only money they made was because Mr. Ryerson loved him some Aretha Franklin, and it was drug money. It went to fund the Brainiacs and their trip to Detroit, and New Directions were out several boxes of saltwater taffy. Kurt was actually kind of glad his parents hadn't come, even though they had asked if they could. They really just wanted to meet Blaine, which he was kind of stoked about, but it wasn't New Directions' best. Kurt wanted them to know that, for real, his show choir didn't suck. They were heading to Nationals, after all. So Kurt's parents had come up with a different plan.

During the show, Blaine sat with his friend from Dalton because he didn't want the only supportive person in the audience to leave, and eventually they were the only two audience members left. Kurt watched them chatting between numbers, slightly itchy. He wanted to talk to Blaine, but... not in front of Skam. But the guy never left his Dom's side. Not even when they went back to the choir room; Skam just came along, with Blaine giving a tour on the way. When Blaine wrapped his arm around Kurt and whispered an affectionate good night to him, fingers playing with a button on Kurt's shirt as he nuzzled his neck and got him dangerously close to an awkward erection, Skam had just stood right there smiling this schmucky self-important smile rather than back away to give them a single minute alone.

Kurt had taken the bus home, lips smushed up into what he was pretty sure was a pout. He knew this Skam dude didn't know his life and didn't know how important each little second he got to spend with Blaine was to him, and it was cool Blaine had a gay friend to watch Bravo with, but he still felt cheated.

When he walked into the door, hair and shirt wet and matted down from cold springtime rain, Kurt's dad actually stood up immediately, muting the TV.

"Well? What'd ol' Blaine have to say?" he asked, making it sound like he and Blaine were hunting buddies from way back when. His dad was being really, like, overzealous about being cool with Kurt having a guy for a Dom, but it was nice since Kurt had been afraid of the opposite. In retrospect, he didn't know why; his dad was really friendly person and hadn't even seemed shocked when Kurt had admitted he was pretty sure he was actually a sub. A guy just didn't want to disappoint his dad, he thought.

"I didn't get to ask," said Kurt, a little grouchy as he locked up behind him. "I, uh... he had his friend with him. He'd invited this guy from another school. I thought it'd be weird."

"Why? What's weird? And who's the guy?"

Kurt shook his head, unable to articulate the embarrassment he'd feel if Blaine had turned him down in front of Skam, or even worse, just felt obliged to say yes because Skam was there. His mom, clearly aware that he was flinging droplets of rainwater from his hair, grabbed one of the napkins from the stash they'd built up and came over to pat him down.

"I just got shy. No big deal."

"You? Shy? Now, you can be a quiet guy sometimes, but you're not shy, are you?"

"Nah, I'm not really that shy," Kurt agreed, snagging the damp napkin from his mom and patting it over the back of his neck before any more water could roll down the back of his shirt. "But, Dad, it's kinda hard to be a guy and ask out a guy in front of another guy."

"Why!" his dad said. "He already collared you, son! I think that means he likes ya."

"Ah, you're a Dom. You don't get it," said Kurt, smiling.

"I don't see what me being a Dom has to do with it. And what's that other guy got to do with it? He's got nothin' on you. Blaine's responsibility is to you. His interest, if he knows what's good for him, is you."

"Honey," said Kurt's mom, amused, "Kurt's been collared for all of three days. Learning how to feel comfortable asking your Dom for things can take some time."

"Well, sure," Kurt's dad admitted. "But you never know till you try. Why don't you call him up, Kurtmy?"

"Uh... really? It's kinda late... isn't it?"

"You just got home. He probably hasn't been home that long, himself. What, you think he won't answer?"

"I don't know," said Kurt.

"Well, you usually talk to him before bed, don't you? It wouldn't be weird if you gave him a ring."

Mouth tugging nervously, Kurt considered the time. A Law and Order: Special Victims Unit re-run was on, so it was a little late. Stevie and Stacey were already passed out, Stevie on the cot and Stacey in her own pink sleeping bag. But it was also Saturday night. And he did always talk to Blaine before bed.

"Okay," he found himself saying.

"Dwight, you don't need to be pushy with him," he heard his mom mutter with some fond exasperation.

"You want to meet this kid, don't you?" his dad replied calmly as Kurt headed back out into the cool, humid night.

Even though it was drizzling and he was just getting wet again, he wandered down into the parking lot, scrolling to Blaine in his contacts and pressing the call button with expectations that were pretty low.

"Kurt, hi – what's up? You okay, sweetie?"

"I'm okay," Kurt answered, sniffing in the wetness, but he did feel nerves kicking in. He could still feel the warm gripping Blaine had given his wrists because his cuffs were still firmly strapped in place. His Dom's presence was somehow overwhelming, even over the phone. "Sorry for calling really late."

"Not at all. You can call me anytime."

"Were you asleep?"

"No, I'll turn in here in a few. I'm just applying my nighttime eye cream."

"Oh. Good. Uh, I wanted to ask you something. I wanted to ask you earlier? In person? But I didn't want to, uh... interrupt, I guess? You can say no, obviously. You can do whatever you want."

"Ask me, Kurt," Blaine said simply.

It felt like he was asking Blaine on a date, or something, but it also felt like he was asking Blaine to do something unpleasant. It really meant a lot to Kurt that his dad was acting like everything was so totally normal and awesome and that his mom hadn't had broken down in tears over that hickey, but Kurt had yet to inform either of his parents that Blaine wasn't the biggest, uh, Jesus freak. Still, it was his dad's idea, and even if Blaine did say no, Kurt could at least go to sleep knowing his parents were trying to be supportive in their own way, even though they were both so stressed out, and that they loved him as much as ever.

Kurt took a deep breath. "Well, I just... It's just, my parents wanted to know if you wanted to come to church with us tomorrow. For Easter."

"...Oh."

"I'm sorry. I know it's totally last-minute. I guess it turns out the church is having an egg hunt after, which is cool 'cause... Stevie and Stacey'll go nuts. But they just asked me out of nowhere earlier if you had plans and if you might want to come. I guess my mom really wants to meet you and my dad is convinced you two are gonna wind up going skeet shooting together, or something? I know you don't go to church and I doubt you skeet either. But, um, I just thought I'd... ask and see."

"Oh. Well..."

"Sorry," Kurt repeated. "It was a bad idea."

"No, it's not a bad idea!" Blaine said hastily. "I'm – surprised, and very flattered your parents thought of inviting me. Really. That's really kind and... unexpected. But you're right. I don't go to church. Um. I don't mind if people believe in God. I know that's an important fixture in a lot of people's lives that they depend on and get a lot out of. That particular path is just not for me. Honestly, I've felt uncomfortable every time I've gone to church, even if everyone is really nice and just wants the best for my immortal soul. But, um, you've obviously picked up on the fact that I'm not religious, so that's – a bit of a relief. Having said all that, I'd love to go, if just to see you. And meet your parents and stuff, too, of course."

"Really!" Kurt blurted. It came out way more impressed than he meant for it to, but he was probably even more shocked Blaine had taken him up on the invitation than Blaine was to be asked in the first place.

Blaine's laugh came out a bit staticy over his dumb phone line.

"You thought I'd say no, huh?"

"Yeah, I – well – I just... I didn't know, really."

"You're Catholic, right?"

"Yeah. Uh, well, I mean, we go to a Catholic church, but we're more Episcopal. My mom was raised Catholic and my dad a Unitarian, so in Tennessee we went to an Episcopal church, and I also went to Baptist bible camp every summer and my boarding school was Methodist."

"Wow. You're all kinds of Christian."

"I guess. Yeah."

"I watched a couple of seasons of The Tudors, but I really don't know the difference between denominations," Blaine said. "All I know is England was Catholic one second and Protestant the next, and went back and forth and back and forth, and heads were flying everywhere."

"Episcopalians are more laid-back, I guess? Catholics are a lot more strict and they believe some stuff Episcopalians don't. In the Episcopal church, priests can get married and be women and be gay and anyone can take communion, but Catholics are more traditional. But they look really similar, like if you go to traditional services. Like, they have bishops and stuff, and say the Nicene Creed."

"That's all Greek to me, especially because I'm still stuck on 'gay priests.' Are you for real? I'm frankly shocked."

"Yeah. But that's Episcopalians, not Catholics. Uh, but. Um. You won't be the only gay person there."

"Yeah, I bet not," said Blaine, rather sardonically. "What about your cuffs? Can you be collared in church, or is that some kind of sin?"

"I can be collared! Lots of subs are. And I told you, I'm never taking them off, so. I'd just switch churches if they tried to make me."

"All right, I'm sold," Blaine declared. "I can never resist the pleas of a sweet little sub. What time should I be ready, and should I wear a hat fit for the queen, or...?"

"We're going to the late service, so, like, ten-thirty. Is that okay?"

"Sure, that's okay."

"Wear whatever you want. You'll look really – snazzy," said Kurt, fumbling a little with the compliment and scratching his head awkwardly.

"Ah! Do you ever know how to get butts in seats," Blaine chuckled.

"I – I mean it, I think you'll be the best dressed person there!"

"More flattery! Thanks for the faith, so to speak. Okay, so. Ten-thirty-ish?"

"Yeah! Thanks – thanks for coming!"

"Of course. Now let me be selfish and tuck you in a little, since I've got you on the phone."

"'Kay," said Kurt happily. Just for the sake of it, he stopped his restless foot from messing with a rain-drenched sprout of a weed in the middle of the parking lot and hurried to the steps in front of his family's motel room. He wasn't gonna sleep there or anything, but he liked really feeling like Blaine was tucking him in, so he carefully sat himself where it was dry and eagerly tugged his knees up to his chest.

"I know I already told you this, but I'm so proud of what a great job you did with your intros during the benefit. No offense to Mike and his mop or Mercedes and her backup choir. They were both great and wonderful and all that jazz. But you were my favorite part by far!"

Pleased, Kurt huffed. Blaine had said he was proud twice earlier, but he hadn't said that last thing. "Thanks."

"You spoke very clearly and always smiled. I could tell you took Artie's directions from the other day to heart. Excellent job. And you looked so cute in your green shirt. I don't remember you ever wearing it before. But I liked it! And you were so polite, shaking Skam's hand and everything. Even though you've met him in passing before, I was really excited to introduce you to him, as my sub. Did you see the way he was looking at your wrists?" His Dom hummed happily. "He was so jealous."

"Jealous? Really?"

Kurt had kind of gotten a vibe like that, since Skam had spent the entire concert at Blaine's side and kept looking at his Dom and sitting really close to him and whispering things to him unnecessarily, but he'd felt so itchy and reluctant, he'd thought maybe it was just him feeling jumpy and paranoid because of the way things had turned out with Quinn and Finn; he could still hear himself shouting about kissing distance in the school library, which hadn't been his finest hour as a sub.

"Jealous of me having a total hottie for a sub."

"Oh..."

"He also begged me to show him the discretionary. But I told him it was our private suite."

Kurt flushed at the words, both in the ears and in his jeans, forgetting his missteps with Quinn utterly.

"The intermissions between acts were a bit lengthy, so we probably could've ducked out, but I didn't want to risk missing you, so I made him just sit there with me while I bragged on you. I loved looking up at you on that stage while you introduced everybody. I just kept thinking, 'That's my good boy.' I was so proud. I wish all of Sunshine's Twitter followers had showed up just for my own personal benefit, but maybe it's just as well that they didn't. My massive ego might have suffocated them all."

"You're joking," Kurt managed, listening to Blaine's pleased laugh.

"Are you going to be a good boy, now, Kurt, and go cuddle down in your sleeping bag?"

"Yeah," said Kurt. "I'm so happy you're gonna be there tomorrow."

"Aw, you are?"

"Yeah." Kurt was starting to get pink-faced. "I wanna see you."

"Well, I'll see you tomorrow morning for church, cutie. Go get some sleep."

"Yes. I will. Night, Blaine."

"Night, sub," said Blaine, sneaking in one last little tweak to Kurt's happiness.

After taking a minute to sigh and center himself, Kurt headed back in.

"He's coming," he informed his parents dreamily.

"'Course he is," said Kurt's dad.

"Go take a shower, please," Kurt's mom said, making Kurt realize he'd been heading automatically toward his sleeping bag – his happy place – to think about his Dom. "And bring me those wet clothes when you're done."

"Yes, ma'am," he said, scooting.

"Dwight," she continued, "wipe that smug look off your face."

"Yes, dear," said Kurt's dad indulgently.

*

For some reason, Kurt wasn't remotely nervous.

He had expected to be way, way more sweaty-nervous to introduce Blaine to his parents. Nervous whether they'd like him and what they'd think if he wore one of those fox tails; nervous whether he'd like them. But Blaine had been so agreeable about coming to church when he didn't believe in God or feel comfortable there that it put Kurt strangely at ease. (So did the fact that Blaine had not fathered any illegitimate babies last year.) So when they pulled up to Blaine's house in their van the next morning, Kurt was, in his mom's words, a squirmy puppy.

Blaine's stepmom answered the doorbell. She was in sweatpants and had a glass of champagne or something, and had definitely not been to church, but was smiling enthusiastically.

"Hi there, Kurt!"

"Hi! I'm here to pick up Blaine."

"He's just finishing up his ensemble. Come on in!"

Mrs. Hummel waved at his parents, who waved back behind the van windows.

Kurt stepped over the threshold, hands clapping then rubbing then folding in front of him. He couldn't button the cuffs on his shirt and wear his collars at the Kurte time, so his shirt cuffs were conspicuously slouching, unfastened, somewhat hidden by the suit jacket he'd borrowed from his dad. It didn't fit him very well, but it was Easter, and this was currently the nicest thing he had to wear. He usually wore his green striped button-down, the very Kurte he'd worn to the benefit concert, to church. At least, he had for the past couple of months. Every week.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," came Blaine's voice, sounding rushed. "I was doing one last spray."

"That final spray is so important," Mrs. Hummel told Kurt with a wink.

A pale hand ghosted easily over the wood railing, and sure enough, Blaine rounded the landing and came down the stairs, smooth and nimble, dressed in a slim-fitting brown suit that looked silky and shiny. His hair was styled differently than he wore it to school – like higher in front, or something. Kurt incompetently absorbed the fact that he was wearing a blue-green bow tie, kind of a robin's egg color. His pocket square or whatever seemed to match, but it had a pattern on it, and his shirt seemed to match that without matching his tie. Somehow it all pulled together, defying what little Kurt understood of fashion, and he just looked... very Blaine. And really good. And really different than everyone else in the world. For a split second, the way Blaine was descending the stairs made Kurt feel like they were on their way to prom, not church.

"Ah-ha," said Blaine in a knowing tone, looking at him with eyes that seemed to be bluer than Kurt had ever seen them. "Look at you! I'll just call you angel of the morning. Don't you look nice."

"I, ah," Kurt said. Mrs. Hummel was standing there with him, and he had no idea how to compliment Blaine half as effusively as Blaine had just complimented him, even though he didn't look anywhere as nice as Blaine did. He wound up laughing stupidly, and Blaine came right up to him and grasped his face, smiling and looking him over. He smelled gut-wrenchingly amazing. Kurt didn't know if it was the fresh hairspray or some kind of cologne or even his clothes or what.

"Cutie-pie," Blaine commented, right in front of his stepmom. Kurt's internal temperature spiked fiercely, leaving him blushing in Blaine's hands.

"Well, you boys both look cute, like a pair of eclectic buttons," she said.

Blaine chuckled as though he found that particularly droll, then asked Kurt, "Ready?"

"Yeah," said Kurt gratefully.

"Enjoy those mini-quiche," Blaine told Mrs. Hummel, opening the door and ushering Kurt out in front of him.

"We will."

"And don't let Dad eat the extra cheesy ones I made for Finn!"

"You know I won't, honey," she said. "Go! Have a good time."

"You had brunch with your family," Kurt blurted, once she'd shut the front door. He'd only just remembered. "You're missing it. Sorry. I forgot."

"It's okay!" Blaine said, taking Kurt's arm gingerly. "Easter's not a big deal for us."

He lead Kurt down the porch to the puddle-laced walk that cut through the tidy, springy green yard, heading to where Kurt's family's van was waiting for them, but it felt different than when Blaine lead him around at school. At school, Blaine twined around him or even held his wrist, really walking him, but right then he seemed to be only touching the back of Kurt's bicep.

"You nervous?" Kurt asked on a hunch, scoping out the flush in his cheeks in the bright spring morning.

"Yeah! Nervous. Excited," said Blaine, head bobbing to indicate they were just about the Kurte thing. "You won't let me do anything dumb in front of your parents, will you? Like accidentally give the preacher the bird or take from the collection plate or something?"

Kurt laughed under his breath. "You won't do anything like that! Stacey'll be more of a liability than you."

"Oh, right, your brother and sister," said Blaine. Kurt wondered if he had actually forgotten he had siblings or if he really was just nervous.

He huffed again, and took a whack at a compliment: "Uh, you – look really awesome in a suit."

Blaine turned a smile on him, and Kurt caught him batting his lashes and didn't know whether he was doing it on purpose or not.

"Thank you."

With a relieved, happy rush, Kurt reached for the van door.

"Hope you don't mind," he said. "It's us and the kids and their Easter baskets back here."

"Not at all," said Blaine, though his shoulders now looked to Kurt to be hitched with some apprehension.

Kurt rolled the door open and stretched out a hand to Blaine, offering his help to climb in, and Blaine took it. Kurt squeezed his hand while he was at it.

"Hey! It's Blaine!" said Kurt's dad from the driver's seat.

"Yes! Hello," sang Blaine, sliding his way in with his usual grace. "Hello! I'm Blaine!"

"Dwight."

Blaine shook his dad's hand, and it kind of reminded Kurt of the formal introduction Blaine had given himself the day Kurt had joined glee. His first impression of Blaine then was that he was a little intimidating and weird, and came on strong, but that he was obviously super smart and had kinda seen right through him and known who he was immediately. It had very much been a Dom introducing himself to a sub, and Kurt had reacted shyly at first.

"Mary," said his mom. Blaine shook his mom's hand more like she was Cinderella or something.

"You can call us Dwight and Mary," said his dad.

"Okay! I will, thank you!"

He climbed in after Blaine, fighting down bizarrely huge swells of pleasure that he guessed had to be pride, maybe, in his Dom, and in his family, all rushing up into one tidal wave. It made him practically collapse in his seat.

"It's so nice of you to invite me," Blaine was saying.

"We're so glad to have you," Kurt's mom said. "We've been wanting to meet you."

"Oh, me too!"

"And this is Stevie and Stacey," Kurt said, turning to tug at one of Stacey's corkscrew curls. Stevie and Stacey had consented to sitting in the third row of seats, and Stevie was committed to his coloring book, but Stacey had evidently wiggled out of her seat belt while the van had stopped. She was really excited about her Easter dress and the egg hunt and... basically everything. She was going after her pink stuffed rabbit. "Oops. We've got a wiggler back here. Let's get you back in your seatbelt so we can get rolling."

Kurt leaned between his seat and Blaine's to help encourage Stacey back into place.

"Hi," said Stevie.

"Hi! Ooh, I like your dress," Blaine offered Stacey. Knowing Blaine, it might have been a legitimate compliment; Kurt had no idea. All he knew was that Stacey's white sundress had purple flowers printed on it and that Stacey had wanted to wear purple shoes with it, but only had some old white sandals, and this had been cry-worthy an hour ago.

Blaine got stared at for a few seconds before Stacey, who was being particularly floppy, said, "Who are you?"

"Um. I'm Blaine. I'm in glee club with Kurt."

Kurt and Blaine glanced at each other at the Kurte time, their eyes meeting, and Kurt grinned at him, seeing his awkwardness.

"Blaine's my Dom," he said cheerily, buckling Stacey's seatbelt.

*

Even though Blaine seemed to be as charming and adept as ever, chatting in an extremely friendly manner with Kurt's parents about glee and McKinley's football championship and his dad's tire shop, he also seemed to be more anxious than Kurt ever would have expected. He was still barely touching Kurt's elbow as they filed into the sanctuary with throngs of other parishioners in their modest Easter finery, and Kurt finally realized he wasn't leading, but following, and holding on very lightly to Kurt like he feared he might get lost or left behind.

Kurt stepped into the lead without thought, offering his arm more obviously, but Blaine's hold was still tentative. He peered warily around, taking in the joyous explosion of flowers happening around the white-draped altar, and whispered, "The ceiling's so high." Kurt wondered how many times Blaine had been to church in his life.

His family headed to their usual spot, where Blaine gave a funny stoop-necked bow at the cross and allowed Kurt to direct him into the pew. He didn't want Blaine to wind up sandwiched awkwardly between his parents or something. Blaine sat when Kurt gave him a gentle elbow. His back and arms were rigid, but he seemed intrigued by the cushioned kneeler in front of them and stared at it for a long minute.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, barely above the soft drone of the organ playing and people taking their seats, "I'm having impure thoughts."

Kurt elbowed him again, trying not to smile too wide.

"Do I need to go to confession?" Blaine asked.

Leaning in closer, Kurt whispered, "You can confess impure thoughts to me if you want."

"Do I get to see you kneel on that?" Blaine whispered back.

Kurt shivered lightly. "Yes."

He could physically feel in Blaine's upright posture just how much this wasn't Blaine's comfort zone, but having him there by his side still felt good to Kurt. He liked the subtle way Blaine's shoulder was butting into his and had a passing thought about putting his arm around Blaine like in glee – but he wondered how it would make Blaine feel, since he was already kinda uncomfortable. He lost the thought when Stacy climbed habitually onto his lap, clutching the stuffed rabbit that had been in the Easter basket Quinn had given her.

"Hey, did you name your rabbit?" Kurt asked her. "Is her name Pinky Wigglenose?"

"No," Stacey protested, but Kurt had captured her attentions and a smile.

"But that's a great name for a pink rabbit," said Kurt.

"Stacey," said a familiar voice, eliciting a gasp from Stacey, who was right up off Kurt's lap again. She dropped her pink rabbit into Blaine's lap as she squeezed her way past his knees and around the end of the pew to hug Quinn, who giggled in the aisle. "Hi! Happy Easter! You look beautiful in your dress! Did you bring your basket? Hi, Stevie! Happy Easter! Mr. and Mrs. Evans, hi."

"Hello, Quinn. Nice to see you." Kurt's dad smiled.

"So nice to see you," said Quinn. Kurt wasn't above noticing that she looked particularly pretty. Her dress was floral, too, and she had on a delicate white sweater with short sleeves for modesty and a white headband tucked into her mane of blonde waves. She was wearing her little gold cross. She was also wearing a little pair of short-wristed white gloves, which should've made her look like a little girl but instead made her look very Domme. She looked at him with expertly flattered eyes. "Happy Easter, Kurt. ... Blaine."

"Quinn. It's certainly a pleasure to see you here," said Blaine, level and smiling.

"Oh, no, the pleasure is all mine, believe me. Seeing you in church really is an Easter miracle."

"Kurt's parents invited me," said Blaine pleasantly. "Isn't that nice?"

"That is just great," said Quinn, a totally false brightness in her features. "Well. I really hope you enjoy the sermon. I hope it brings the light of Jesus Christ to your heart."

"Wow. Thank you."

Feeling his eyes sitting round from the kiss-kiss-darling tone of the whole aggressively-executed exchange, Kurt glanced at his parents and saw his dad's brows had lifted. His mom was still kneeling with her hands templed together and a look of mild concern on her face.

"I'll see you at the egg hunt after church, won't I, Stacey?" Quinn asked, leading Stacey competently back into the pew by the hand.

"Yes!" Stacey bounced back onto Kurt's knee.

"Great! Happy Easter!"

Quinn strolled away with grace, greeting someone else a few pews behind them, but in Kurt's opinion, Blaine had won the small battle of faux niceties since he'd hardly given her any. Blaine straightened in his seat and smiled at Kurt, wearing a complex expression that seemed to convey a thread of annoyance even though it also seemed like something about that had put Blaine in a more confident frame of mind. Blaine lifted up Stacey's pink rabbit and scritched its head in a way that made its nose appear to wiggle.

"Oh, dear! You draaapped me," he said in a squeaky voice. "I, Her Royal Bunniness Miss Princess Pinky Wigglenose-Windsor, only ride in baskets, dearie!"

"You sound funny," said Stacey. Kurt wasn't sure if she was talking to the rabbit or to Blaine.

"Well, I was busy overseeing the royal egg coloring and I breathed in too much vinegar," Blaine said, and the stuffed rabbit's nose twitched. "I'm feeling very silly, dahling! But it was purple and purple is just my faaaaavorite!"

Kurt chortled, not really because of the situation Blaine had described, but because Blaine's voice was so high and he was waving the stuffed animal in such a way that it looked like it was totally acid-tripping and marveling over the colors it was seeing.

"Don't you laugh at me, servant boy," said Princess Pinky Wigglenose.

"That was rude of me. I'm sorry, Princess Pinky," sighed Kurt gravely. "Please don't turn up your twitchy nose at me."

"Return me to Stacey immediately! She's the only one that truly understands my love of carrot and jelly bean cake!"

"Yes, your majesty."

Kurt snagged the rabbit and made it hop-hop-hop back into Stacey's arms, smiling at his Dom.

But Stacey obviously didn't know what to think of Blaine. She just silently hung onto her rabbit and stared at Blaine, not taking the playful bait. It occurred to him then that he wasn't sure what Stacey knew about Doms, anyway. She was still pretty little. Kurt hadn't known anything when he was in first grade.

Blaine smiled back at Kurt crookedly and gave a helpless shrug, lamenting out of the corner of his mouth, "Quinn has me beat, here."

*

Mass was great, except for a rough few minutes where Stacey literally couldn't sit still anymore and almost burrowed under the pew. Kurt's mom had to sedate her with crayons and let her color on the bulletin.

Kurt felt happy and light, chest soary with pride. For the first time in months, he totally forgot Quinn was even in the Kurte room; it didn't seem to matter all of a sudden, which made him realize that every Sunday since they'd broken up, he had dreaded church a little.

But with Blaine at his side, it was like the morning sun had filled up the whole place, brightening everything. He shared a hymnal with his Dom and listened to that clear, pure voice sing "Jesus Christ Is Risen Today" along with the congregation, and even though he knew Blaine didn't ascribe any emotion or meaning to the words, sharing the tune he knew by heart with him seemed special in a way Kurt hadn't anticipated at all. It was nice to sing with him without swaying or worrying about where his feet needed to be. Plus, it was cool because Blaine heard the soprano harmony on the refrain and joined it easily, his high notes drawing the attention of the people in front of them.

He barely stopped himself from telling them Blaine was his Dom.

He tried not to blatantly watch Blaine watching things, but all the Easter pomp and circumstance and readings and kneeling in prayer and standing to sing and then sitting again seemed to bemuse Blaine. When Kurt wasn't gazing to his right at Blaine's profile or meeting his eyes shamelessly, he was smiling stupidly at the floor and at the priest, and he was probably paying about the Kurte amount of attention as Stacey. He'd been to his fair share of church services, so instead he focused on the fact that he was sitting with his Dom and allowed it to fill him up to the brim. Quinn had sat with his family many times, and he with her and her mother a couple of times, too, but Quinn knew her way around the service and Blaine didn't. She had been the one to hold the hymnal for Kurt. This time, Kurt held the hymnal for Blaine and felt immeasurably privileged to be trusted and looked to and of use.

During the sermon, Kurt was thinking so hard about Blaine he merely let his stare veer to his right, looking at Blaine's hands. Blaine was sitting with his knee crossed and both hands tucked around them, how he often sat in glee. Kurt couldn't stop thinking about reaching over and holding his hand.

When the congregation shared peace, the first person Kurt turned to was his Dom, hugging him eagerly.

"Oh, do we all hug?" Blaine asked, giving him a friendly pat. "Is this a Catholic thing? 'Cause it explains so much about you."

"You can just shake hands," Kurt said, even though he was reluctant to let Blaine go. Blaine shook the hands of the couple in front of him. Kurt hugged his family and shook every hand he could reach. This was kind of his favorite part of any service, but as it was Easter, everyone seemed particularly smiley.

So Blaine wouldn't feel left behind or awkward, Kurt sat out communion.

"You can go!" Blaine whispered, looking worried.

"I don't have to do it," Kurt told him. "I've been benched with Stacey asleep on me a ton of times."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. It's not mandatory." Kurt smiled at him. "Hey, you forgot to steal from the collection plate."

"Do you think I should've put something in?"

"Nah. You don't need to do that. Or do or say anything you don't believe in just because the congregation is. No one minds. I, uh... can I hold your hand?" Kurt asked him.

"Oh my gosh, is that allowed?"

"I don't think it's forbidden," Kurt said optimistically.

"If it won't get you in trouble."

Smushing his lips together with pleasure, Kurt edged his right hand over and took Blaine's left. The kick of excitement in his gut was unreal, and it escaped him in a puff that pulled his chest down hard. Blaine allowed Kurt to pull his hand from his knee and onto Kurt's, and their hands slid together while people ate paper-thin wafers and sipped wine at the altar, fingers finally interlocking.

When Kurt's parents returned, ushering Stevie and Stacey, he felt a reflexive unease loosen Blaine's grip. But Kurt sat there, happy as a clam, obliging his other knee to Stacey, and his dad reached over and ruffled the back of his hair a bit. After a minute, Blaine relaxed.

*

"Well," said Blaine, his hand still gathered in Kurt's. Kurt hadn't let go even during the mighty and majestic recessional hymn, but holding the hymnal with Blaine turning the pages had worked out. "This has been enlightening."

"Did Jesus build a springtime nest in your heart?" Kurt asked. Blaine shot him a side-eye, then seemed to figure out he was totally just kidding.

"No, but that's good. I'm too young for heart troubles. I mean, this..."

He looked out at the somewhat mushy green church yard, where thirty or so kids, Stevie and Stacey among them, were getting kind of muddy, racing around for eggs. The eggs weren't really hidden so much as just scattered randomly in the grass. It was good for a few toddlers who could barely walk, let alone lug an Easter basket, but easy pickings for older kids like Stevie. Stacey was dragging, opening each egg she picked up to see if its contents were things she liked. Kurt's mom had wandered out into the fray to try and prevent her from being so picky.

"Church?" guessed Kurt.

"Well... sort of."

"Did it weird you out?"

"Well. No more than usual. It was interesting, sort of. Everything was so, um, grand. And regimented," murmured Blaine. "And the sermon was so short. I thought it was going to go on an hour, but it was like, ten or fifteen minutes. There's all this other stuff to do and the music is so Phantom of the Opera. It's actually bizarrely different than the church Mercedes goes to. I keep expecting the pope to pull up in his popemobile."

"We have to put on the popesignal if we want to summon him."

Blaine's shoulders clutched to keep him from laughing.

"I mean this, too." He swung their hands between them. "I see you come from a people who like to take a little hug break during worship, but hand-holding? In church? In front of your family? Color me surprised."

"Are you cool with it?" Kurt asked him. "You looked tense. I just really wanted to hold your hand."

"I'm definitely cool with it. I guess what surprises me is that you're so cool with it."

"Would you not hold my hand in front of your family?" Kurt asked, not exactly following.

"Of course I would. But they know me. They know who I am."

"Well, my family knows me. And it's not like God doesn't know you're my Dom. You know he has X-ray vision, right? And fire breath."

"Are you maybe confusing God with Godzilla?"

"I'm kidding with you! You can relax. I'm not, like, really uptight and literal about everything in the Bible."

Blaine swung their hands again. "Oh! Well, still. This is novel for me. I've never held hands with a boy. Not like this – like we're... together. I like that it's you. I like that it's here. I like that you haven't seemed to notice Quinn giving me truly the most terrifying of polite smiles."

"My mom said she was jelly beans," Kurt told him. Blaine eyed him, still smiling, and Kurt thought he probably understood.

Kurt's dad rolled up and put his hands on Blaine and Kurt's shoulders.

"Some hunt this is, huh!" he commented.

"Dad likes to make it a challenge," said Kurt.

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah. He'll put the eggs in really weird places, like up in trees or places impossible to get to, or he'll put green eggs in green grass and yellow eggs in yellow flowers and stuff. There were always a handful that never got found each year."

"How Machiavellian!"

"Oh, Kurt loved it when he was a kid," his dad attested. "The weirder the hiding place, the sweeter the victory. Plus, if it wasn't interesting, he'd wander off."

Blaine beamed up at Kurt, who grinned sheepishly.

"So, you two. How about Breadstix for lunch?" Kurt's dad asked.

"Um... uh, that sounds nice... we don't have to, though," Kurt said warily, thinking of their empty savings account.

"It's a day to celebrate!" said his dad.

"Like, probably everyone's going there after church. It might take forever."

"That's okay. If they have kid's menus we'll ask for a couple while we wait. Blaine, you're a Lima native. You gotta like Breadstix, right?"

*

That night, Kurt didn't feel like lying on his bag, and his mom noticed him trying to read the previously uncracked copy The Catcher in the Rye he'd borrowed from Brittany for English instead, knew something was up, and asked, "You okay, honey? Did Blaine have a bad time?"

"No. I think... I think it went pretty good."

"Me too," she said, and offered him a crinkly-eyed smile. She was folding his blue shirt, which was clean now, since they'd gone to the laundromat. "But this morning you were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and now you're in the corner, looking gloomy."

"I didn't really sleep enough, so it's kinda hard to read this," Kurt said with a sigh. This was so often the truth that it was a super effective lie, at least for a terrible liar like him. Anybody but his mom would've bought it. But she knew him too well. His mood had been steadily declining since they'd dropped Blaine off after lunch. He really didn't want to register a complaint, though. It had been nice of his parents to invite Blaine out to eat, and it was the thought that counted.

"Maybe if you eat a plate of spaghetti followed by an entire bag of chocolate eggs you'll be able to crash, too," she said, referring to the way Stacey was napping on the floor with Pinky Wigglenose under her arm and his dad was just about snoring on the bed.

"Yeah, after I puke," Kurt joked.

"If you're tired, you should get some sleep," his mom commented. "It is a school night."

"Blaine might call."

"Okay. You wait for your Dom, then," she said calmly.

"You liked him. I could tell," Kurt said, getting a little happier.

"Well, he caught me up on a bunch of the stuff on General Hospital that I missed!"

Kurt laughed softly. That had definitely happened. But Blaine had turned the topic of his last visit to church and how his dad had been in the hospital last fall into something light, at least, and then asked Stevie and Stacey what their favorite shows were. He and Stevie had even played tic-tac-toe about a dozen times, and after some protestation on Stevie's part about being allowed to win, Blaine had achieved a pretty convincing balance of wins and losses. And if he'd lost Kurt's dad during the daytime dramas talk, he won him back by verifying that he ate meat.

"Did you think he... I dunno..."

"...Did I think he was a nice young man?"

"Never mind," he said, flushing and staring at the endless words on the pages in front of him.

"Well, I did think he was a nice young man," she said. "Very friendly and well-dressed and respectful. And I heard him singing at church, and you're right. He sounds like Faith Hill."

"Yeah. I like his voice," said Kurt.

As it stretched past nine, Kurt's phone finally vibrated in his pocket, and he dropped his book without so much as a dog-ear and hopped up, heading directly outside and into a chilly evening.

He flipped open his phone and pulled the door shut behind him before saying, "Hey."

"Hey!" said Blaine. "Are you busy?"

"No. Just failing at reading."

"Oh. Well, I just wanted to hear your voice," Blaine said. "Usually you call me by now..."

"Yeah," Kurt acknowledged.

"Maybe you got sick of me," Blaine kidded. "I was with you all morning. But I have to say, I always like one-on-one time. And speaking of one-on-one, I wanted to ask you if you could come over after school on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or, well – basically any day this week."

"I have Tuesday off," said Kurt.

"Perfect!" said Blaine. "Ask your parents!"

"'Kay."

"How are you tonight?"

"Fine, but I'm kinda bummed, I guess, if you want the truth," Kurt murmured.

"Oh my God, why? Did I say something terrible to your parents? Are they disgusted I yammered about soaps for forty-five minutes?"

"It was more like ten," Kurt said. "But, no. I just..."

He reached the picnic table, where his parents had held a number of serious conversations since they'd wound up here at the motel. Sometimes it was just with each other, and sometimes it was with him. He dropped himself onto the bench, not knowing what to say.

"Tell me what's wrong," Blaine prompted gently.

"I wish my parents hadn't dropped eighty bucks on Breadstix!" said Kurt, just outing with it. "We can't afford it. I kept thinking of other stuff we could have bought with that money and it was hard to eat that food, thinking about it, but I made myself because my parents bought it for us. I wanted to enjoy it, but I couldn't. Not that I didn't like eating with you – I liked sitting with you and holding your hand under the table. And my parents really liked you and just wanted to treat you and be normal with you, I know, and it's not my place to tell my parents how to spend money when they're busting ass trying to get jobs so we won't be living on the street and stealing bread like in Aladdin."

"I... I had no idea it was a big deal," Blaine said, "or I would have said I had plans or something."

"I know you didn't know," said Kurt. "I've never told you how poor we really are."

He sighed, the ocean of guilt that he'd been treading in for hours washing over him.

"Kurt... I don't care how much money your family makes, or anything like that," Blaine told him. "You told me you guys have been having a rough patch. I totally get that."

"No. It's more than that. You don't know," said Kurt, staring out at dim reflectors dotting the side of the highway. "We're barely getting by on what I make delivering pizzas."

"I know you give your parents your paychecks to help out. That's really selfless of you, Kurt."

"No," Kurt repeated. "I'm not selfless at all. We don't have any money, Blaine. My dad lost his job in January and the bank took our house in February. We had almost no savings, so we sold almost everything we had. We're – living at a motel right now. My parents are trying every day, but there just aren't any jobs right now. They've had a couple interviews, but nothing's panned out yet. Most of the time you have to know someone to get a foot in the door, and we're new here. We don't know anyone. It's so hard for them to even make interviews sometimes, especially with one car and three kids to take care of. I'm doing all I can, but it's not enough, and still, I have the nerve to want my own room back. I want my laptop back. I want my iPhone so I can play Angry Birds and listen to music. I want my guitar. I want to eat organic. But I know I can't have these things. So I don't want to worry that dinner at Breadstix is gonna mean we can't get allergy pills for Stevie or we can't send Stacey on a field trip to the zoo 'cause we don't have that money."

His babbling obviously put Blaine off, because there was just silence. Not even static.

"Those aren't selfish things to want," Blaine finally said.

"I shouldn't have said any of that," Kurt said lowly. Now he was embarrassed. Double embarrassed. Why was his fuse so short lately? "You really only need food and shelter, and I have those things, and I have my family and work part-time so there's income, so there's no way we'll ever have to go to a homeless shelter. I'll drop out and deliver pizzas full time before I let that happen. I'm super fortunate to have gotten that job. I'm fortunate to not be on the street."

"Kurt... you sleep in a sleeping bag, right? Is that because you don't have a bed?"

"We have a cot," said Kurt. "But I sleep on the floor 'cause I like it. It suits me. You know."

More silence.

Kurt's eyes darted around. "I don't mind it! And it's just temporary!"

"Of course it is!" said Blaine. "Just till your family gets back on its feet."

"Exactly! It's not like I'm in a gutter using newspapers for blankets!"

"No! And thank goodness for that."

"Right? I could have it much worse."

"Definitely. And it's not just you. A lot of people are having a hard time with the economy and finding jobs right now. And absolutely everybody goes through rough times and struggles, whether it's financial difficulties or abuse or illness or jail time or addiction. In Lindsay Lohan's case, it's all of the above and a whole laundry list of other things, including insane fame-whoring parents, Herbie Fully Loaded, and tragic lip injections."

"See? At least I'm not Lindsay Lohan."

"Lindsay Lohan would kill to have beautiful lips like yours. She keeps trying, but –"

They both laughed lamely. Honestly, it didn't really help to compare himself to Lindsay Lohan, but he needed Blaine to believe it was all fine. More selfishness. He needed Blaine to be fine so he could be fine.

"Kurt," repeated his Dom, speaking slowly. "I'd really like it if you would tell me what's going on with you. I realize we're still getting to know each other, and I can't know everything there is to know about you in a matter of a few weeks, but I feel like an idiot. I didn't realize you were dealing with anything more than a breakup or trying to get used to having me bossing you around. And I feel really worried if you don't trust me. As your Dom, I want to have actually earned your trust and confidence and I need to know your state of mind or I can't train you effectively."

"I'm sorry," Kurt said dully. Tears were dropping heavily down his face and he couldn't really stop them, so he didn't try. "I'm not a good sub. I know that."

"Please don't talk like that. It's not true, and I really won't allow it anymore, and I have to ask that you bow to my authority, here, and stop this negative thinking pattern. When you put yourself down, you're abusing yourself and hurting yourself, and I don't like it. It's not good for you. It's like you're trying to discipline yourself, but for what, I don't know."

"Please forgive me, Blaine," Kurt said, hastily wiping his face with his starchy open sleeve cuff, which ruffled around his collar reluctantly.

"For what?"

"Everything. Keeping secrets from you when you're my Dom, and thinking negative thoughts when I know you don't like that. I don't mean to. I don't want to. I don't like it. You're my only master but I still feel like everything I did with Quinn and Santana was wrong. And I feel really... guilty. I feel like there's something wrong with me."

"Well, you're Catholic, so I believe that may come with the territory."

"Episcopalian," said Kurt, even though he got that Blaine was trying to joke with him.

"Gesundheit."

Kurt laughed. And cried awkwardly, silently as possible, as Blaine went on.

"I honestly don't think you did anything wrong with your former Dommes. I think you were just wrong for each other, and there's nothing wrong with that. People break up all the time. Quinn and Santana are smart girls and both have their moments. But they wanted you because you were popular, and they fight all the time. You came to this school and immediately scored that coveted jock cred, and Santana snagging you was a massive power play against Quinn. And Quinn has had her troubles. I don't discount them, but I think she probably shouldn't be domming anybody. But she and Finn used to date last year before all the baby daddy drama, so maybe Finn is her one true sub. Who knows?

"But you – you are perfect. You're perfect for me, Kurt. I actually kind of get why you might think it's easier to go it alone and not let anyone see that you're actually struggling. I'm a prideful person and I'm used to doing things on my own. People just don't tend to understand me. They often don't even try. So I'm used to other people not caring what I may be going through and dismissing it when I'm upset, especially because I'm gay, as if that makes me less of a person somehow. Sometimes I get irrationally angry when I feel like I can't bear my load alone. I don't like feeling like I'm not a strong enough person."

"That's exactly how I feel," Kurt said, amazed.

"Really? Then, honey, I gotta say, we're more alike than I thought. You can tell me anything. I promise, I won't hear it as complaining. I won't judge you. If you feel like you don't want to tell me something that's between you and your family, I totally respect that. I respect you. But I really, really care about how you feel. I hope you know that. You're incredible and precious to me. You're amazing enough as it is, but the fact that you do so much for your family makes me admire you and treasure who you are even more. I'm really glad that you shared this with me."

"I'm really embarrassed," Kurt managed, incapable of even the most ineloquent of thanks. "I feel like a freak."

"Embarrassed" didn't seem to cover it. It didn't begin to touch how worthless or helpless or worried he felt or how fiercely protective he was of his family.

"You don't have to feel that way – but it's personal, and vulnerable. Really, I understand that."

"Yeah."

"And I had no idea," Blaine repeated. "Does anyone else know?"

Kurt swallowed hard. "Quinn."

"Ah."

"She followed me home last week. To where I'm staying, I mean."

"That bitch!"

"I think she maybe just... was worried."

"Right. Yeah. Yeah, that's normal, you're right. I will retract my claws."

"That's okay. You can catfight over me. I don't mind."

Blaine laughed warmly, and Kurt took a deep, shaking breath and let it out again, feeling the worn wooden table chilly under his elbows in the still night air.

"Is there anything at all I can do to help you, sweetie?" his Dom asked. "You don't have to carry everything alone anymore."

"No! I'm fine! Don't, like, treat me any different or anything like that," Kurt said, sort of worried. "I'm not a charity case. I can get by without all that stuff I mentioned earlier. I was just mad, but now I'm not anymore. I've been getting by fine. Honestly. I just want you to be my Dom like always and let me carry your books and let me – please, let me serve you. If you go gentle on me, I won't learn anything. I won't know how to be a good sub."

"I'll be gentle on you if I think you need gentle," Blaine said sternly. "That's my decision. Do you agree?"

"Yes," Kurt admitted.

"You have an amazing sense of discipline, Kurt. It's really incredible. I can tell how much your Dommes have meant to you. Your dedication makes you a wonderful sub and an enviable person and honestly, if you wanted to be a switch, I think you'd be great at it because your earnest discipline shines through. A lot of people don't have the self-control you do. Your diet, your exercise regime, your studying, your amazing capacity to give all you have, including yourself, to others... It's actually really hard for a lot of people, Dom or sub, to achieve things like that and have that willpower and inner strength. You're the exact opposite of what I'd consider a bad, bratty sub. But when your self-discipline becomes self-punishment, self-flagellation, I don't like that. And I want it to stop. You need to hand your punishment over to me. I'm your Dom. I appreciate that you want to behave, but disciplining you is my pleasure and my right. You're taking that away from me. How can I discipline you if you're busy doing that yourself? Nothing I say will mean anything to you."

"Yes. I'm sorry. I didn't think about it like that at all – I just – was trying to keep it together."

"It's okay. I understand that. And I understand why... I think. But do you understand why you can't be telling yourself that you're a bad sub?"

"Yes. I get it. It's not my place. I'll try not to."

"If you catch yourself doing it, stop. Stop, and feel good that you stopped yourself."

"Okay. I'll really try. Thank you."

"Good. I'm happy you'll really try to do that for me. And I heard what you said. I won't go easy on you all of a sudden. I agree that nothing has changed – except now, I'll know how to train you that much better and you'll understand that you need to let me."

"Yes," Kurt gasped gratefully.

"I'm still going to tell you what to do."

"Yes."

"I'm still going to dom you all I want."

"Yes. Please, Blaine. Please."

"That's what you need, isn't it, cutie."

"Yes," Kurt breathed. "I don't know how to even – say it."

"Mmm, good."

Kurt waited for a few seconds. He felt like there should be something else.

"Am I gonna get punished?" he asked.

"Punished? Seriously?" Blaine asked coolly. "After the way you've been punishing yourself? I kinda can't tell if you're asking me 'cause you're afraid of punishment and you want to avoid it, or if you're actually requesting it."

"I don't know," Kurt said, confused. "I'm kinda scared, but I keep thinking – I don't know. You're so nice to me all the time. I guess I'm not used to my Dom never getting pissed at me."

"Don't think for a second that the fact that I'm a romantic at heart means that I don't have it in me to do all kinds of things to you," Blaine told him, eliciting a sharp shiver of hope in Kurt – not to mention a semi in his slacks. "But tonight – no. No, sub. I don't want to punish you for anything about this situation. It's not because I'm taking it easy on you. Actually, I'm proud that you shared true and honest feelings with me, and I don't feel you should be punished for doing that. I understand why you were keeping it to yourself. But I'm glad you told me."

"Oh," uttered Kurt. When his Dom put it that way, he understood why it seemed like it was sort of a weird thing for him to have asked.

"I'm proud of you," Blaine repeated. "I'm happy to be getting to know you. I liked meeting your family. They're all so nice. Stacey obviously thinks I'm a freak, but hey, I'm not above bribery. I liked going to church with you. I still find religion bizarre, but it was nice, too, and – you looked so cute and so happy, it made me happy. I liked holding your hand. And I can't wait to see you again tomorrow."

"Would you tuck me in?" Kurt asked, curling forward and resting his head on his arm.

"Of course, sweetie. Start me off. What would make you a happy boy?"

"You. Taking a hot shower. I have some clean clothes, so... I'll feel good. Clean. Then my sleeping bag."

"Given the circumstances, I know I shouldn't find it precious that you camp down in a sleeping bag," Blaine said, "but I admit, I do. Tell me about it, please. What does it look like?"

"It's, like, a rust color," Kurt said, amused that Blaine wanted it described to him but pleased because he could do that for Blaine. "Kinda dark orange. Inside it's really puffy and soft. Like flannel. It's kinda brown and red and blue checkered. Looks like squares. I got it a long time ago 'cause my dad and I used to camp all the time when I was younger, and I was in Cub Scouts too. It's heavy-duty. It makes me think about toasting marshmallows. It used to, anyway. Now I guess I think about other stuff. Like my cuffs. And stuff you said. About trying not to jizz in it."

"My little sub in his little sleeping bag," said his Dom. Kurt could hear the abject leer and reddened against his arm. "Down on the floor, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Hmm. It wouldn't be any good if you came in your sleep on that soft flannel, would it?"

"No." Kurt shuddered vulnerably.

"Darn," said Blaine lightly.

"Someone in my family would notice," Kurt wheezed.

"Oh. So you would never touch yourself in your little sleeping bag... or hump your pillow while everyone's fast asleep..."

"Touch a little," Kurt admitted in a squeak.

"Oh," Blaine repeated, this time sounding devilishly pleased. "Tell me, have you ever jerked off while you've been living there?"

"Once. I just – there's no privacy and it's... depressing. There was only this one time when my mom took Stevie and Stacey out to the park and my dad was out selling some of our stuff. It was when I was with Santana, so. She told me I could touch her boobs and I was bummed about Quinn but kinda couldn't wait to do that, so – I kinda started jerkin' it in the shower, but. I stopped. I dunno. My head was a mess. I had this feeling I was disobeying, even though I wasn't Quinn's anymore. Nothing about it was good. I just felt jumpy and like I should stop. I thought if Santana wanted me to ask her first, too, I'd get in trouble..."

"You're so cute, Kurt," said Blaine unexpectedly. "You really are. I love it."

"Thanks," Kurt said, warming inside at the praise. Maybe he really had been good. Not for Quinn or Santana, but for Blaine.

"But you do get hard."

"'Course, constantly," he groaned.

"Of course. And you touch your hard sub dick a little sometimes. But no one knows."

"Mm..."

"I like that," Blaine declared.

Well, Kurt was hard now. And not just casually. And it felt kind of weird, given he could feel dried tear tracks on his cheeks, but he was admitting a lot to Blaine, handing it over to him, and he felt lighter and even more aroused because it seemed like there was all this empty space in him now that Blaine was filling with other ideas.

"Have you ever thought about waiting till everyone's asleep to touch yourself a little more?" Blaine asked, something about his voice very light and careful.

"No," Kurt said, rather shocked.

"I mean, like, good and asleep. So you wouldn't have to worry about anyone seeing you or hearing you."

"...Have you ever shared a room with four other people??"

"Well, I've had sleepovers with Rachel and Mercedes," said Blaine. "And guess what? I got a stiff one thinking some inappropriate things about Taylor Lautner with Rachel and Mercedes snoring away in bed three feet from me. And, yes. They both snore."

"Taylor Lautner?" Kurt asked intently. "What – do you want to dom him?"

"Not exactly. My point is, it was weird, but I also got over it when I realized they had no clue I was awake and thinking about how I'd never let my houseboy – played here by guest star Taylor Lautner – wear a stitch of clothing while scrubbing my floors on his hands and knees. If I could've gotten away with it, yes, I would've jerked off, but I didn't have my moist towelettes within reach, and it would have shown up on my blue silk PJs pretty bad if I'd made a mess. Since I wasn't at home, I didn't have any spares, or the foresight or intent to sneak a washcloth to bed with me."

"Jeez!" Kurt murmured. If he hadn't needed to hold his phone he might've squeezed himself through his church pants.

"I'm scandalizing you, aren't I?" his Dom laughed.

"I just didn't know you liked Taylor Lautner so much," Kurt said.

Blaine said, "Silly. I didn't have a sub then, and we'd just watched two Twilight movies back-to-back and I spent the whole time peeping on that sub-tastic slab of low-fat beefcake. Taylor Swift, honestly. Who did he think he was fooling? My point is, I... I think your self-control really is one of the most amazing qualities you have as a sub. And I didn't even know you had it when I took you on. It's an unexpected delight. But what if I gave you permission to let it go a bit? What if I told you I think you should jerk off sometimes? What would you say?"

"...Do you want me to?" Kurt asked. He was aware right then that if Blaine wanted him to scrub his floor naked, he would.

After a little pause, Blaine decided, "Yes. Just for tonight, I want you to give it a try. If you think you can, I mean. I don't want you to get in trouble with your parents, but also, I'm not going to pass on the opportunity to suggest you jerk it just because you have even less privacy than I realized. What about that hot shower? Do you think you could give that another go?"

Kurt, too, gave it a moment of consideration, trying to think over the noise of his heart and humming arousal. "Yes."

"If you think you can do that for me, I'd like it. I'd like it if you would think about what a good sub you're being. I know you said you felt kind of messed up before, but now, you're my sub, Kurt, and I'm not those girls. I like that my sub is so obedient for me and will do whatever I ask, and is so sexy, and so horny, and needs to come... don't you, cutie-pie?"

"Please," Kurt managed.

"Maybe when you snuggle down in your sleeping bag tonight, you'll have had a nice hot shower and you'll be wearing clean clothes and you'll be so comfy and sleepy 'cause you would have come for your Dom. Hm, sweetie. Does that sound nice?"

"Yes."

"Now you can go get ready for bed, can't you?"

"Yes."

"Remember to ask about Tuesday, if you can."

"Yes, Blaine."

"That's my good boy."

Kurt whimpered softly.

"Sleep well, honey. I'll see you in the morning and you can tell me all about your sweet dreams."

"'Kay."

"Nighty-night."

"Night, Blaine."

Kurt hung up and sat in silence at the picnic table, blinking at his surroundings as he became aware of them again. It was weird... Blaine knew he was staying here now, but it really didn't feel like anything had changed. Blaine still wanted to dom him. It was a massive relief, yet Kurt felt like he should've known that Blaine wouldn't toss him like a used Kleenex.

After replaying the directions enough in his mind that he felt like he definitely understood them, Kurt pulled himself off the bench and wandered dazedly back to his family's room, with his phone and one hand in his pocket, occupied with grabbing at his hard-on to try and keep it on the downlow. His mom had finished folding clean laundry and seemed to be pensively reading his copy of The Catcher in the Rye, which was a change, because usually she was buried in the classifieds or Job Hunting For Absolute Morons.

"If you actually read that, can you give me the CliffsNotes version?" Kurt asked, closing and locking up behind him.

"I'll give you a good trailer. But is it just me, or is Holden Caulfield a real whiner?" she asked.

"Pretty much." Kurt plucked some boxers, his usual sweatpants, and a tank top from the basket of clean laundry. His jeans, green button-down, gym shirt, and blue hooded shirt were all clean, too. "Um, I'm gonna take a shower."

"Okay, Kurtmy. Remember to hang your dad's suit up so he can wear it this week."

"'Kay," said Kurt. "Also, Blaine wants to know if I can go to his house on Tuesday. Since I have the night off. He asked me to dinner last week but it was too busy."

"Dinner? Will his parents be there?"

"I'm pretty sure. And Finn. His step-brother."

"Okay, then. That sounds fun."

"Cool," eeped Kurt, and escaped into the bathroom. The counter was littered with a stack of extremely cheap beach towels his mom had gotten for them at K-Mart because they kept running out before the maids could restock them, all of their toothbrushes and deodorant and junk like that, plus his dad's cell, which was charging there at the available plug. He didn't really pay attention to any of it; he had a direct, like... order. From his Dom. He turned the shower on, edging the lever only midway to "H" so he wouldn't use up all the hot water too fast.

He got naked except for his collars, which he always wound up staring at in front of mirrors, and watched himself slowly wrap a hand around his hard-on, working it and pulling in a deep breath. God. He really loved the way the cuffs looked and felt on him with his dick in his hand like that. He got even harder looking right down at his wrist and realizing what it really meant.

"I'm being a good sub," he mouthed, looking at himself in the mirror with some sense of duty.

After a minute, Kurt stopped stroking, something in him telling him he was getting too close, and removed his cuffs as reluctantly as always. Being very careful and reverent, he put them one by one on top of the sloppily folded pile of his dad's slacks and button-down, then hovered there an extra second to make sure they wouldn't slide off and fall to the floor. Then he clambered quickly into the tub, drawing the curtain behind him. The light was so terrible in the bathroom that Kurt was almost in the dark with the plastic curtain drawn. Usually the dark kind of annoyed him, but just then it did give him an extra sense of privacy. Between him and his family there was a thin door and a thin curtain, but the noise of the water in the pipes and spraying against the tub layered him into a little cocoon.

His entire family all shared the Kurte bottles of dollar shampoo and conditioner, used the Kurte bar of dollar soap. It didn't matter. It worked. Kurt grabbed for the soap, then leaned his head right under the soft beat-down of only slightly warm water and mindlessly lathered up his hands and arms.

I'm a good sub, he kept repeating to himself as he scrubbed himself down. Every time he thought it, he thought of Blaine, and that fact alone had him skirting that safe space where he went when he was one hundred percent preoccupied with his Dom, so he got more and more certain and daring in his thoughts. I'm Blaine's sub. I'm Blaine's now, so. My collars are right there. He's seen me like this, all naked and wet and super boned. In the bath. He palmed and rolled his balls with soapy fingers, huffing and reminding himself, He knows what I'm doing. He knows I'm in the shower right now. He wants me to touch myself. I will. Blaine said I should. For him. I'm – I'm a good sub. I'm his good sub.

He squeezed his eyes shut so shampoo wouldn't slide into them and immediately plunged like a stone right down into his most base fantasy, which had gotten a wicked bump since last week. Wouldn't it be better if he was on his knees, and his Dom's hands were in his hair instead, rubbing in all the soap and sweeping it back from Kurt's face and telling him he could have it once he was clean – Kurt could have his dick in his mouth.

Now Kurt knew what it was like to have that. Even if it had only been for what seemed like a few seconds. He knew how capable his mouth was of taking it, how his lips tugged, and how frantic his head had been bobbing in Blaine's lap like there was no tomorrow. The soap was quickly getting beaten out of his hair as he thought about his hands being Blaine's and tilted his chin up, seeking out that feeling of submission. Blaine pet his hair like this. Something about imagining Blaine in the shower with him made him imagine boarding school, and the locker room, and dick service, and –

He would.

He would do it.

If Blaine walked into the locker room at McKinley and found Kurt in the shower, Kurt would be on his knees so fast. Forget the soft room. Forget Brookside. If Blaine let him, Kurt would service his Dom's dick in front of the entire fucking football team, Karofsky and Azimio and Finn and all the rest of the glee guys, and everyone would see how powerful and generous and hot Blaine was and what a lucky little sub Kurt was to be getting to suck his cock.

That was it.

Clutching the edge of tub for a hot second, Kurt lowered himself right down onto his knees, knowing he needed to be there and craving the feeling. They awkwardly hit each side of the tub, not allowing his legs much room to open as he sat back tensely on his calves, water hitting the back of his head and cascading down his spine. Blaine was right, he was tall to be in a tub. Blaine.

He grabbed and pumped at himself with frenetic fingers, feeling like a good sub for being down on his knees – he was being a good sub, he really was – and hanging on to that desperate desire to serve Blaine, naked and wet and picturing himself kneeling in the most vulnerable place he knew of: the showers in the locker room. The water rushing over his shoulders made it so visceral in his imagination. He gasped, body flexing eagerly as if doing so would somehow prove how ready he was, and Blaine would see, would get it, would break the rules and have Kurt suck his cock right in the locker room.

"Please," he heard himself whisper, lips sputtery-wet, and shot off over the back of his hand.

It was almost a shock to his system, being in control of his own pleasure and jacking it right up out of himself like he hadn't in, like, six months – but it was a good one because he knew Blaine would tell him he was a good boy, and just knowing that, he wrung himself out eagerly, feeling immensely obedient with each pulse of come.

After a few seconds, it was over, and Kurt sighed at his jizz-webbed fingers, suddenly really exhausted. That hadn't been near as intense as any of the times he'd come with Blaine, but it was familiar and carried a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction anyway. With his clean hand, he reached back and turned the temperature all the way up, then basked lazily in the hot flow, rolling his palm against his cock as he knelt there and softened, touching himself just because he could.

By the time Kurt emerged from the bathroom again, he was warm and pruney and drowsy, and had shimmied into his sweatpants and tank top and strapped his collars back on. His mom was under the floral blanket beside his dad. She didn't say anything about how long he'd been in there, and didn't say anything as Kurt headed right for his sleeping bag. She was still reading Catcher, the bedside lamp giving her a dim golden glow. It was good for her to get her mind off job-hunting, he realized, unshackled from his sense of responsibility and failure. She deserved a break. And so did his dad. It seemed suddenly extremely obvious that his parents were likely planning for them all to have a nice family dinner out anyway, no matter if Blaine was along or not, and clearly weren't stressing any extra about the money. There was no way they would have spent that money if they didn't have Stevie's Claritin covered.

With that final burden evaporating from him, Kurt hit the pillow. And even though he was used to purposefully carving out time to think private thoughts, Easter Sunday night was particularly quiet at the American Family Motel and Kurt's brain was super empty, so he fell instantly asleep.

*

The moment Kurt saw Blaine appear in the hallway, he reached up and twisted the red face on the lock, overshooting the first number of his combination immediately. He had it unlocked and Blaine's locker open for him when Blaine reached his side.

"Hi," he said eagerly.

"Morning, hot stuff," Blaine said, making Kurt laugh breathily. Hot stuff? That was a new one. But he definitely wasn't averse to Blaine calling him that. "Hold this for me?"

Blaine offered his bag, which Kurt took eagerly, shouldering it on top of his own backpack's strap.

"Boys," said Puck in lazy greeting, passing them by with a toothpick in his mouth even though it was 7:45 in the morning. He lifted a hand, and Kurt gave him a high five.

Blaine arched a brow and watched Puck swagger onwards, unbuttoning three entire double rows of buttons on a tan trench with a collar that was royally high. Kurt watched his Dom instead, more interested in watching his fingers work and the buttons come open than the bustle of kids trying to make it to their first class on time. Blaine wore so many things with so many buttons and other complex fastenings.

"Are you taking that off?" Kurt asked.

"I know, it's a lot of work, isn't it," Blaine said.

"Well – can I help you? Like –"

Kurt stepped from his usual place to the right, vigilant beside Blaine's open locker, sliding behind Blaine and touching his slinky shoulders. He saw that the jacket had some kind of blue stain on the back. Well, it wasn't a stain. It was a flower and had been painted or printed there on purpose even though it looked almost accidental. He could see that now that he was looking at it closer.

"Oh! Well – yes," Blaine said, clearly surprised at the offer. "Thank you."

Carefully, Kurt reached around and peeled the jacket back, easing it around Blaine's shoulders and pulling it off his arms. He was pretty used to helping his little brother and sister get in and out of coats and clothes and all that. Stevie was pretty independent about getting dressed now, but Stacey had her stubborn days. In either case, it wasn't something entirely unfamiliar to him, but it still felt good to touch his Dom's clothes and help him like that. He was used to just kinda stuffing his letterman jacket into his locker, but for Blaine's jacket, he brought it back around to him in both hands, holding it straight.

"How kind of you," Blaine commented, in his low, flirty way.

"It's cool. Thank you for letting me," said Kurt.

"You seem like you're in a good mood this morning," said Blaine, hanging his jacket up. "How'd you sleep?"

"Good."

His Dom, who was smiling, gave him a little once-over that Kurt knew had nothing to do with his outfit of clean jeans and his worn gray henley with red raglan sleeves, which he wore about twice a week and which he'd covered today with one of his dad's plaid button-downs in the dim hopes that no one would notice. The shirt's cuffs were unbuttoned and rolled up just enough to show off his collars.

"Uh-huh?"

"Really good," Kurt repeated.

"Really, now."

Warm-faced, Kurt leaned in and whispered to his Dom confidentially, "I had a hot shower."

Blaine's smile spread.

"I bet that felt good," he said, reaching to Kurt's cheek and giving it a gentle, playful pinch. The corner of Kurt's mouth perked right up against Blaine's thumb, and Kurt let his head dip, feeling very much like he was in Blaine's hand – not just his fat cheek, but all of him, totally. Blaine's hand opened and held the side of his face, thumb sliding along Kurt's cheek bone, and Kurt's forehead touched his Dom's. It was warm with both of their faces close, and a little intense because Kurt felt so grateful and safe.

"Man, do we gotta see this crap every single day?"

It was Azimio, walking by with Karofsky. Blaine's eyes went right to him, sharp.

"What is it with glee club? You always gotta put on a show? Know what? As a member of the Heckling Club, I heckle you! This ain't no stage!"

Kurt's arm crept around Blaine's side, all his protective instinct funneling itself. A couple of months ago he would've stopped Azimio in his tracks, given him a shove to inform him he didn't care that the guy had, like, a hundred pounds on him, but he knew Blaine got pushed around by these guys a lot and abhorred their methods, which were kind of Kurt's methods, too. So instead he just attached himself right to Blaine like a shield, turning him unthinkingly back into the lockers so no one could reach him to push him.

"Ain't nobody wanna see your fairy show, lady-boys!" Azimio crowed, and knocked Karofsky in the arm for some solidarity, but Karofsky just shuffled on, glowering, and Azimio's focus seemed to shift away from them and onto his friend. He complained, "You ain't fun no more."

"I just don't care about them, okay," Karofsky grumped. "It's too early for me to care."

Blaine exhaled tensely, staring at them as if he had laser vision.

"Say the word and I'll punch their faces in," Kurt said.

"No," said Blaine, glancing up at him and relaxing. "No, don't. They don't bother me near as much as they used to, and I don't want you to get in trouble."

He looked down, just seeming to realize that Kurt had backed him up against the lockers, and gave Kurt's cheek a broad, reassuring pat.

Kurt backed off apologetically, but Blaine caught his hand, slid his fingers between Kurt's, and said, "Walk me to French?"

*

Glee was a total bust that day, in that Finn actually busted Rachel's nose five seconds into dance rehearsal and Mr. Schue had to leave and take her to the doctor immediately. Finn, who was apologizing embarrassingly profusely and really aggravating the crap out of Quinn doing so, went with them. Their piano player rolled his eyes and left, and with that, most of the glee club peaced out, but Kurt and Blaine stayed. Besides study hall – which they'd actually attended, as much as Kurt had been hoping they might ditch – glee was their only time together.

Puck and Zizes didn't leave, instead choosing to rifle through all the drawers and closets and props backstage in the hopes of maybe finding something interesting.

"Jumbo Sharpie, score!" they heard Zizes say.

"Aw, yes! Good find. Great for bathroom graffiti and killing off all those pesky extra brain cells just wasting valuable real estate in my head."

"I guess I'll just hang up my prom posters alone," Quinn said icily. Since Finn wasn't there, Kurt guessed she wasn't saying it to anyone in particular, but he shared a look with Blaine.

"Would you like our help, Quinn?" Blaine said.

Kurt didn't know if it was a totally facetious offer or what, since he kind of got the picture that Blaine and Quinn weren't high on each other's lists right then.

"Oh, don't trouble yourselves over me," she said, aloof.

When Blaine gave Kurt a tug on his sleeve, Kurt said, "We can help if you want, it's not trouble," and earned a little smile from his Dom.

Quinn turned a doubtful look on them, looking as if she had her own personal rain cloud overhead.

"The posters are actually a little heavy," she said reluctantly, "so if one of you maybe wanted to carry them, that would be great."

So that was how Kurt wound up helping his ex-Domme hang up campaign posters featuring her and her new sub.

He carried the posters, anyway, which were large and printed on nice photo paper that made the stack of fifty or so cumbersome, and trailed after Blaine as he helped suggest spots and peel off tape to stick on the backs of them.

It wasn't his ideal afternoon – but Blaine and Quinn were being polite to each other, discussing the prom decor ("I'm letting other people handle that," said Quinn) and dresses ("I've narrowed it down to three, but I'll have to choose after I decide what to do with my hair," she said) and who was going with who, and with his arms full of posters, Kurt realized suddenly that maybe Blaine was interested in the prom.

Kurt hadn't even really thought about it. In middle school, Brookside had partnered with its sister school, Meadowside, for dances, but Kurt had only gone to one. It had just been kind of awkward. Nobody had actually danced, since most people didn't really know each other. With his work schedule and lack of any extra cash and the fact that he wasn't dating an expectant girl anymore, he hadn't considered going, like, at all, not even just to decide not to go.

Following Blaine and Quinn, he watched his Dom carefully, trying to gauge his interest. Blaine sounded very cheery, like he had with Kurt's parents, so Kurt knew he was trying to be extra nice to Quinn. But he really was interested in stuff like planning events and fashion, so the fact that he was talking about animal prints and whether stuff was trendy or whatever – it was hard for Kurt's brain to really keep track of the nitty-gritty; it all sounded kind of the Kurte to him and he didn't know the difference between necklines anyway – didn't mean he was actually into prom.

"It's pushing five," Blaine finally told Quinn, once they'd applied at least three posters to every wall in the cafeteria. "Kurt needs to get home soon."

"Oh, right," Quinn said, smoothing her floaty lacy skirt.

"Want me to put the rest of these somewhere?" Kurt asked.

"If you could put them in my backseat, I'd really appreciate it," said Quinn.

"Sure."

"Great!" said Quinn airily. "Thanks for your help, Blaine. I wish Finn had realized that going to the doctor with Rachel would only continue to put her nose in harm's way, but. I guess he was determined to be considerate. Tell him to call me if you see him lounging around at home."

"Will do," Blaine said. "How about you go with Quinn, Kurt? I'll get our books and meet you out in the parking lot."

"'Kay," said Kurt. He was slightly amazed that Blaine had been calling Quinn a bitch and talking about claws coming out last night on the phone; right then he seemed perfectly at ease with letting Kurt go off alone with his ex-Domme – in service, even.

"This way, Kurt," said Quinn.

Habitually, Kurt followed, glancing over his shoulder once at Blaine heading down the hall in the opposite direction.

"I'm glad to get you alone, actually," Quinn confessed, leading him out the door by the cafeteria, which was student parking directly by the track and football field, where all the Cheerios always parked. "I have something for you, and I wasn't sure how to give it to you, with you and Blaine attached at the hip nowadays. Even at church! You certainly gave my mom and her Christian Divorcées group something to talk about. I was answering a lot of questions."

"Sorry 'bout that," said Kurt.

"That's okay. I told them you weren't totally gay, just... curious and probably a little confused. That's right, isn't it?"

"Sure," said Kurt. He was kind of legit sorry, but honestly, he didn't really care what a bunch of middle-aged busy-bodies and soccer moms thought he was.

"I mean, you weren't gay when we were together, were you?" Quinn asked sharply. "I wasn't just your beard, was I?"

"No – of course not."

"I didn't think so."

Kurt sighed, peering for Quinn's little red car with its Cheerios bumper sticker.

"Look, sorry people were asking you questions. Tell them whatever you want. That's what Santana did."

"You don't seem to care about your reputation anymore," she noted loftily.

"Can you blame me? Look at me these days."

"So you don't care at all what people are saying about you?"

"Yeah, I mean, I care, if it affects Blaine, or might affect my parents," said Kurt, remembering Azimio's groaning at Blaine's extremely mild and inoffensive PDD that morning, and Jacob Ben Israel getting all up into his business. "But what can I do? People gossip so much here."

"It's a little like I'm talking to a totally different person than the guy who took me to the astronomy room to tell me we were stars."

"Well, you're not. I still think you're a star. But I just have to think about surviving in a different way now. Maybe I'm not at the top of the high school food chain anymore, but." He dared to say it: "I think maybe I'm supposed to be where I am now."

As if she didn't care to hear that, Quinn walked ahead, pulling keys out of her purse. He heard her unlocking her car remotely with an audible little clunk of all its locks, and the handle clicking as she opened a back door for him. Happy to ditch the posters he'd carried for over an hour, Kurt tried not to bend or crunch any of the ones left over as he eased them into the seat. Then he carefully shut Quinn's door for her and blinked when she stepped up to him and handed him a non-descript white paper bag, the kind with thin little handles, like a shopping bag or a gift bag. He took it without thought. It was actually heavy.

"What's this?"

"It's your birthday in a week and a half," she said.

"Uh – Quinn... you didn't need to do this," Kurt managed. He wasn't Stevie or Stacey. He didn't need an Easter basket. He didn't need bribery or pity, and this felt exactly like one of those things, not a gift. He didn't even know what it was, but the fact that it was heavy and the bag actually on the large side made him extra uncomfortable.

"We're friends."

"But you didn't need to!"

"I wanted to," she said. "The receipts are in the bag, so if you don't like any of it, you can exchange it."

"I can't," Kurt said, thrusting the bag back at her. His skin was crawling with embarrassment. Blaine was going to meet him out here. He'd have Kurt's books. Kurt couldn't accept whatever this was.

"It's a birthday present for you from a friend," she said, breaking out her Dommiest voice, wherein she seemed to give every syllable deadly weight and purpose.

After a statement like that, Kurt felt boneless, impotent; he didn't want it to, but that tone and control left him awestruck. Quinn reached out and casually pushed the bag, which he was still holding out to her, back against his chest.

"Take it. If you absolutely have to, ask Blaine whether it's okay to accept it."

Game, set, match. Kurt took the bag reluctantly. He knew Blaine would tell him to accept the gift, especially after making so nice with Quinn today.

"Thanks," he said, feeble. "I feel so bad... I didn't even know you knew my birthday."

Quinn sighed, looking annoyed.

"Of course I know your birthday. We dated for five months. And I see Blaine power-walking toward us, so my time with you is over, and I'll leave you two alone. I hope you like what I got you, Kurt. Thanks for carrying my posters."

She turned, shutting her car door, so Kurt turned, too, spotting Blaine in his tan trench belted close around his waist, bustling swiftly down their row of mostly empty parking spaces with Kurt's backpack hanging casually on one shoulder. He broke into an abrupt jog towards his Dom. He heard Quinn's door slam.

"Let's get you to the bus stop," Blaine called. He knew Kurt's 5:05 well, and knew there wasn't another bus for almost an hour. "What's that you have?"

"A present from Quinn," Kurt admitted. "I – didn't ask for it or anything."

"You didn't ask your ex for a present? Okay," Blaine teased him gently. "Man, I really need to take a page from that girl's book. I may not like said book, but she has some tricks up her sleeve."

"I don't want it," Kurt murmured.

Blaine took him by the elbow, steering him toward the bus stop that was all the way across the parking lot. "You don't?"

"I feel weird," he said desperately. "What do I do with it? I don't want to take it home."

"Want me to hang onto it for you?" Blaine asked him.

"Is that okay?" Kurt wondered.

"That's fine! I don't mind. Do you know what it is?"

"No, but it's heavy, so I'm kinda freaked out."

"It's not a severed horse head or something, is it?" Blaine joked. "Here. I'll trade you. You take your books and I'll take the bag."

Kurt took his backpack eagerly and handed over the bag.

"Oh! It is heavy," Blaine commented, startled. "You don't have any guesses?"

"No, I don't know," he said, hiking his backpack on. "I don't know why she would give me anything."

"Is she trying to be friendly? Or maybe she feels guilty for stalking you."

"Either – but still."

"Well, don't worry yourself about it. I'll take it home with me, and if you want, you can open it after school, since you're coming home with me tomorrow, right?"

"Right," said Kurt, forgetting about the bag pretty abruptly. "I'm coming home with you."

"I can't wait," Blaine said, his voice melodic and light.

"What are we gonna do?"

"Mmm, lots of stuff, I hope," said his Dom.

"I can't wait, either!"

At the bus stop, Blaine had about fifteen seconds to bid him goodbye before the bus rolled to a full stop, and he gave Kurt a one-armed hug, pecking his jaw and stroking the shaggy hair at the nape of Kurt's neck, where it curled up because it was too long. Kurt hugged him back, listening to Blaine chuckle in his ear.

*

"Excited?" Blaine asked him knowingly.

"I like your room," Kurt said, instead of telling Blaine that in reality, his room was, like, insta-boner-ville.

"Uh-huh..." Blaine leered and opened the door, ushering Kurt in with a pat to the bottom.

Kurt blinked at the white walls and shelves stuffed with an assortment of books and stuff that he'd not really noticed either times he'd been in here before.

The first time, he'd been drunk and it had been dark and cozy, and the main thing that had mattered to him was simply following Blaine's directions and the alcohol-sopped, floaty sensation of being given a great gift. Thinking about it now, he realized in his heart of hearts that he had submitted to Blaine that night not just as a sub, but as his sub.

The second time, Blaine had just collared him and had let Kurt suck him off in car right in the driveway. Kurt had been so subbed out that the room hadn't mattered and had only been made of light and shapes, the bed the center of the whole world because it was his Dom's bed, where Kurt had been made to pose and present. One thing he did remember with a vivid clarity was the sight of his own come thick and shining in a dark fur bedspread. He must have ruined it, because it wasn't on Blaine's bed now.

This time, Kurt looked around and took things in a little more. Kurt's room back at his old house had been absolutely nothing like this, and he doubted most guys' rooms were. It was just so... clean. There were no stray basketballs. No sports posters. He saw Blaine had some kind of table with a mirror back in an alcove; it was lined with neatly organized products. Maybe that eye cream Blaine had mentioned was amongst all the other stuff Kurt didn't recognize.

The headboard of his bed was like a grand panel, luxurious burgundy suede with gold studs, set back slightly into the wall. Columns of built-in shelves bracketed it on either side and black iron lamps were placed just above it, dim right then. To the left of the bed, there was a dark wood dresser with a fancy stained glass lamp sitting on each end and several neat little boxes with mystery contents lined up between them. The big square mirror above it had a bunch of scarves slung over it, hiding most of the reflective surface.

The shelves opposite his bed had books with titles like Monet, some pictures in frames, weird but intriguing stuff like a glittery silver skull and a white seahorse under glass, and a mod, sleek white stereo system. There were a couple of pieces of art on the wall, artsy black and white stuff that reminded Kurt a lot of some of the pictures Blaine had given him on his Lego flash drive.

In all, especially compared to Kurt's current living space, it felt pristine, elegant, and far too nice for him to be in. He let out a breath that was both impressed and nervous, shoving his hands into sheepishly his pockets.

Blaine shut the door behind them, and Kurt heard an extra click that he deduced to be a lock sliding into place.

"You okay?" he asked Kurt, seeming alert.

"Yeah," Kurt assured him.

"It's still a work in progress," Blaine said, crossing his arms next to Kurt and bouncing on his feet.

"What?"

"My room! We've only lived here for a few months. I'm still tinkering. I want it to be light, but have some classic features and masculine texture to it. Minimal clutter. Let the headboard do the talking. I'm not sure about the drapes yet."

"It's awesome," said Kurt. "It looks... just like that. What you said. You should have a show on HGTV."

Blaine laughed lightly.

"Glad you like." He turned, giving Kurt a once-over that Kurt didn't know how to interpret. Was he looking super slobby? He kind of felt slobby, even though Blaine looked dressed down. If a guy could look dressed down in suspenders with red stitching. Blaine managed it. He was wearing a gray striped henley underneath them and its top button was undone, which for Blaine was pretty fancy-free. "Make yourself comfortable. If you want to take your shoes off, feel free. Wanna ditch your backpack?"

Kurt depocketed again and slid the straps of his backpack down his arms, and as Blaine offered a hand, he gave the bag to him, not knowing where else to put it. Blaine carried it over to an old fashioned-looking steel and vinyl chair in the corner by tall satiny white curtains that hung aside a big open window that let in a ton of light. He guessed those were the drapes Blaine was uncertain about. Blaine laid his own messenger bag beside Kurt's backpack in the cream-colored seat, then turned and flashed Kurt a sultry smile.

"Alone at last," he said.

"Yeah," Kurt responded shyly.

"What do you think I've been planning for our little get-together?" Blaine asked him, drifting over with his hands clasped in front of him in a way that seemed anything but demure.

Kurt blinked, pulse picking up in an instant, and shook his head spastically as he clutched his hands, too, mirroring Blaine without exactly meaning to.

"We have lots of time," Blaine said, casual. "We can do whatever we want."

"Oh," Kurt let out.

"Any ideas?"

Kurt had literally no idea of what Blaine could possibly have planned. He knew what he wanted... which was anything and everything... but to get specific, he was still pining to be allowed to suck off his Dom. But Blaine had deferred the plea twice now. Kurt didn't know if asking for the third time would be the charm or if Blaine would hold out on him till he threw a Stacey-style tantrum or if there was a magic word or some specific way he needed to ask to make Blaine change his mind.

He must've stood there blankly for too long, because Blaine chuckled at him.

"Are you maybe thinking about the stuff we did in here last week?"

"I'm thinking about lots of stuff, but mostly I'm thinking about how I don't know what you planned, so I don't know what I should say," Kurt responded.

Blaine tilted his head, then reached out to squeeze at Kurt's shoulders in his gentle, delicate way. His touch slid down Kurt's biceps reassuringly.

"There's no right or wrong answer."

"Oh, so... I'm not supposed to know?" Kurt asked.

"Nope. I don't expect you to read my mind. Just like I can't read yours. So I'll tell you what I'm thinking if you tell me what you're thinking."

Kurt wasn't exactly convinced Blaine could not, in fact, read his mind, but he blurted obediently, "I'm thinking – I wanna – blow you... but I don't know if you'll let me... 'cause I don't know what you want. Maybe you wanna... just play checkers."

"Checkers?" Blaine repeated, amused. "Hm. How cute. I'll be happy to king you if you want."

Kurt laughed stupidly.

"I mean, I bet it'd be fun to play board games with you, but that is definitely not what I had in mind for today," said Blaine.

Kurt stood there, heat gathering in his face, his chest rising steeply over his breaths. Duh, he told himself, but honestly, he was ecstatic to be wrong even if that had been an idiotic thing to say. Checkers.

"I think," Blaine said deliberately, hands sliding down Kurt's forearms, "it's the hottest thing ever that you want to blow me so bad, Kurt. I confess, it's one of the things I had in mind for today. To let you do that. If that's really something you want."

Kurt's inhale was wild, alarmed; Blaine went on before he could start begging right then.

"But you have to let me get you ready. You have to be a good boy for me first. How's that sound?"

"Please," Kurt breathed.

"Yeah? You want to be a good boy for me?"

"Yes, Blaine, please – I'll do anything –"

"No shirt, no shoes, no service," Blaine responded playfully. "I want them off."

Kurt was halfway out of his shirt before it occurred to him: "What about socks?"

"Hm! I like your attention to detail. Take 'em off."

Struggling like he'd never struggled before, Kurt got somehow caught in his shirt, and urgency was shooting through him so hard, it took him what felt like forever to fight his way out. Quinn had let him take his shirt off a few times; his automatic response to it was as bone-tastic as Blaine's room in and of itself was, so he knew his dick was pushing at the front of his loose-fit jeans, called to attention by absolutely everything. The room, the air on his bare skin, his Dom, the idea of blowing him, the idea of having to earn his way to it. He was so game. He knew what he was good for. If Blaine would just let him –

"Do I fold it??" Kurt asked hurriedly, getting the sleeves off from where they were snagged at his cuffs.

"I'll do it."

Kurt would have folded it. He was totally willing. But he handed it to Blaine without protest, craning to watch Blaine shake it right-side-out again even as he stooped to pull his sneakers off. His shoelaces were always a little loose and sloppy, so they didn't put up near as much of a fight as his shirt, and he yanked his socks off one after the other, stuffing them into his sneakers and watching Blaine put Kurt's neatly-folded t-shirt on his dresser. He was outright panting as Blaine sashayed back to him, rounding him and looking at him. Praying he didn't look as chubby as he felt, Kurt flexed, his belly tensing, and Blaine smirked as he eyed him.

"Lie down in the middle of my bed. On your back."

Scrambling, Kurt was there in a second, blinking in pleasure that seemed crazily extreme. His Dom's bed. He felt so lucky.

"On my back? Like this?" he wanted to know, leaning back on pillows that were fluffy and went at least three deep to the headboard. He was on his back, but kind of propped up. He clutched his arms awkwardly across his lap.

"Mm-hm. And put those hands down on the mattress. Just like that, sweetie. Stay like that."

Palms flattened aside his hips, Kurt stayed, staring at his Dom, who didn't divest himself of anything, not even his shoes. He just looked at Kurt lying on his bed and stepped toward it, fingers touching the bedspread on the edge of the mattress and sliding up as he drew in closer.

Moving slow and careful and controlled, Blaine leaned and climbed onto the bed next to him. A strong sensory flashback to the nurse's closet at McKinley flushed through Kurt as Blaine lowered himself to his elbow at his side and tipped a knee up over Kurt's, curling up and resting some of his warm weight on Kurt's side and arm. He rested his cheek in his left hand casually.

This was like the soft room, Kurt thought repeatedly. His thoughts were chasing their own tail. This was like Friday. He was laid out for his Dom. His body was for Blaine to look at and touch – or not – head to bare toe. Was Blaine going to kiss his neck, like Friday? Let him touch back, like Friday?

"That's a good boy," Blaine commented softly. Kurt's mind was spinning, blurring. He hadn't really done anything except follow directions, he guessed, but he moaned for Blaine anyway, both pleading and happy. He was just so lucky. So lucky. Blaine reached over and traced his collar bone, right where the hickey he'd given Kurt last week had been, making Kurt feel like he was plunging even further into some kind of ecstatic abyss. "You're excited to get to spend the afternoon here with me, hm, cutie?"

"Yeah," Kurt breathed honestly, staring up at Blaine's eyes, which were shuttered halfway by delicate dark lashes. This was the Kurte guy who had come to church with him and shaken hands with his parents, but only Kurt saw this part of him and knew him like this. Words, slightly ashamed but sincere, flew out of the whirl of thoughts in him. "'M sorry. I'm so excited. I just. Blaine. I wanna be with you. I wanna serve you."

A coy smile spread on Blaine's mouth. "That's honest, isn't it."

"Yes. I like – being honest with you."

"Well. Don't I have the most eager little sub. Close your eyes."

Kurt did instantly, groaning in his throat, a helpless pulse of arousal shooting through him. With his eyes shut, his attentions shifted drastically to the feel of Blaine on him, the physical sensation of being half naked on what felt like a really nice bedspread (after the tacky old floral bedspreads at the motel and the somewhat sticky vinyl in the sub closet, the difference was so palpable; Blaine's bed was heaven), the reality of his heart pounding in his chest. Blaine could probably see it vibrating and fighting to pop through his ribcage.

"Are you paying attention to me?" Blaine asked him.

"Yes," Kurt responded eagerly.

"Good. I want you to focus on me. Listen to my voice. Listen to the tone of my voice, Kurt. Think about how I'm talking directly to you. Follow what I tell you to do. I want you to take a slow, deep breath..."

Ecstatic for directions to follow, Kurt obediently gulped for air – too fast and too sharp. He caught his own lungs roughly and made himself draw the air in more steadily, till his chest felt full, and Blaine said, "That's perfect. You slowed yourself down, didn't you? Now carefully, slowly... let it out again..."

Bowing his lips and trying not to let his cheeks puff out like a chipmunk's, Kurt released the breath from the bottom of his lungs, as deliberately as he could manage.

"That's good, Kurt. Just like that. Let's do it again, this time through your nose. Inhale slowly... mm, good. Exactly. Now exhale."

A slave to his instructions, Kurt poured everything he had into the simple exercise, and Blaine lead him through it what seemed like a dozen times, till Kurt was abruptly aware that his heart was beating slower, steadier, and his muscles had softened to the mattress beneath them. It wasn't until then that he realized he'd been rigid and thrumming and panting and more excited than a kid on Christmas. A little flush of shame stole over him, but – Blaine had eased him down on purpose, handled him perfectly easily. For some reason, that just seemed to make his cock strain, excited, in his jeans. He relaxed further. He trusted Blaine; he wanted to be good for him; he knew Blaine would help him be good.

"Are you still focused?" Blaine asked him patiently.

"Yes. Totally."

Blaine gave him a gentle laugh. "Yeah? Not falling asleep?"

"No. I'm listening to you. I like listening to you."

"Good boy. Sweet boy." Blaine's nose nuzzled the side of Kurt's face, and his lips pressed a small kiss to Kurt's cheek that made heat rise in a slow burn in his skin. "I'm going to give you a little rule. Do you think you're ready for a rule?"

"Yes," Kurt breathed happily.

"Listen very carefully." Blaine paused. Maybe he was looking at Kurt, looking for anything other than dedicated attention, but Kurt was completely and utterly in his sway. He nodded, just in case he was supposed to respond. "Here's the rule. When I ask you a question, you say 'yes' or 'no' with that honesty I like so much. You can say 'maybe' if you aren't sure. Got it?"

This was like Friday. Kurt felt hypnotized. "Yes. Say 'yes,' 'no,' or 'maybe'... honestly..."

"Mm, very good. Only say it when I ask you a question, and don't say anything other than one of those three words. Otherwise, just listen. I'll tell you if I want you to say anything else. Do you understand?"

Kurt said, "Yes."

"The rule is over when I tell you to open your eyes. Do you hear that?"

"Yes."

"Good. I like it when you pay such close attention to me. You're amazing at playing by the rules, Kurt."

Another little bump of Blaine's nose to his warm face and Kurt was practically flying, bones and muscles loose, mind completely engaged but somehow so free, weightless. The mattress underneath him just felt like an immaterial cloud.

"I've been thinking a lot about stuff we can do together," Blaine whispered. "Especially because of our little trips to the soft room. Did you like going there with me?"

"Yes," Kurt whispered back.

"Was it good to be my little sub at school?"

"Yes. Yes." Kurt didn't mean to say it twice, but once didn't really seem enough.

Blaine giggled.

"You know how much you pleased your Dom, don't you?"

"N – no," Kurt uttered, even though he felt like he should be saying yes, or at the very least, maybe. He did remember, as if through a storm of noise created by his own roaring blood and foggy brain, Blaine telling him he liked his submissive cock, but... he remembered that because it was so hot, kind of like he remembered his own come staining Blaine's bedspread. It was difficult to think he'd really pleased Blaine; he didn't know what he was doing. Objectively, he knew he hadn't displeased Blaine. But as a sub he felt like he didn't have a good handle on what Blaine liked other than honesty. So he gave his first and most honest answer.

"No?" There was a note of surprise in Blaine's voice. "Let me tell you all about it, then. I was so pleased with you. I gave you a rule, and you followed it perfectly. Didn't you?"

"Yes," said Kurt. He wasn't exactly sure, but Blaine had just told him he had.

"That's right. You did."

Blaine paused for a second, and Kurt turned that over in his head.

Then Blaine added, "And you told me how hard you get when your neck gets kissed. You were trying to be honest and open and wanted to warn me, huh?"

"Yes," Kurt echoed, more certainly.

"I like that. And you showed me your hard dick when I told you to..."

Kurt felt adept fingers flicking through his hair, tucking it back behind his ear, but his brain was retreating into what seemed to be the blur of the nurse's office. Each thing Blaine was mentioning was sharpening up the picture for him a little. He had done that – or, at least, he'd obediently let Blaine pull his junk out. He remembered the dirty-good feeling of being simultaneously exposed and crammed awkwardly by his fly. Blaine had gotten him out from tip to root to nuts and Kurt had felt a little embarrassed, but ultimately, owned. Blaine could do that to him. Blaine could do whatever he wanted to him. Kurt was his. And Blaine had said he was beautiful. Kurt's eyelids, though closed, wanted to flutter remembering that. Blaine had liked doing that; had liked seeing him. At the time, Kurt was so, so turned on by Blaine talking about his dick that he'd been wiggling, sticking indecently out of his jeans, and trying not to cream himself even though he was aching to do just that.

Blaine finished, "You were so good for me. You obeyed me, and I loved playing with you and making you squirm. I loved it when you came all over your shirt. I loved watching all that hot white spunk shooting out of my sub's beautiful dick. I loved that you were an obedient boy and made yourself feel good this weekend, too. You did just what I wanted you to, hm, Kurt?"

"Yes?" Kurt breathed. He knew it was the answer Blaine was prompting him for, and it seemed like he really had done what Blaine was asking him to do, but still felt a sense of disbelief about it.

"Yes. That's right, you did, Kurt. And you're doing that right now, too. Just what I ask. And I'm so happy you were honest and said when you don't know something, instead of saying 'yes' just because it sounds positive. I think it's a sign of a submissive who wants to please their master in the truest way possible. Because you know real feelings are better and more pleasing than any acting. Don't you?"

"Yes," Kurt said immediately and wholeheartedly.

"And you want to be my sub and follow my rules, not anyone else's?"

"Yes!"

"Does it bother you when I kiss your cheek?"

Kurt's lips tugged stupidly into a grin. "No."

He was rewarded with a sweet smooch, much less restrained than the pecks he'd been given before. He wanted to moan happily, but it seemed more important to just stick to his three allowed responses.

"I'm really your Dom, aren't I?" Blaine asked lowly, lips hot by Kurt's ear.

"Yes!" burst Kurt.

"Yes? I really am?"

"Yes," Kurt insisted. "Yes. Yes. Yes –"

"And you're really my sub?"

"Yes. Yes."

"Do you know, as your Dom and as a – hm... fan of the male form, of which you are such a perfect specimen, how much it pleases me when you're aroused?"

Kurt took a second to mull that over. Obviously, he knew Blaine liked guys... and he'd told Kurt he wouldn't be angry if Kurt was horny at school, collared.

"Yes," he whispered tentatively.

"Good. It's important to me that you know just how much I love your body and love all your responses. You're hard right now and I love it. I love that you get hard for me. You're so hot, Kurt. I'm really curious about this, so... please be honest. Do you like it when I touch your cock?"

"Yes," Kurt said, startled. His ears went red in a snap.

"I hoped so. See, I'm not... I'm not like Quinn... I want you to feel good, and I want to – have sex with you. I feel a little bad saying that, because knowing you like girls, I worry that means you don't really like guys as much as me. And that's okay if you don't... it's part of who you are. I know you can function with me. I know you want to serve me. You're really such a priceless find. And I want you to feel as good as I do when we're together, doing this kind of stuff. You have to understand how much I love it when you're all wound up. I think it's so sexy and – manly – and hot when your cock is hard and I know you have a load to give your master. Whether I let you blow it or not is a different story –"

Blaine huffed softly, and Kurt choked down an entire series of squeaks. He was wetting his briefs with a hot leak of precome.

"I haven't forgotten you said you wanted to have sex, if it was okay with me. If that's true, then you have my permission – you, my submissive, have your Dom's permission at all times," Blaine clarified intently, "to want sex. To get hard. To touch yourself and jerk off anytime you want when I'm not with you, unless I've told you that you can't for some reason. If you wanna jack it every single night in the shower, you can. You have my permission to love how it feels. And to feel good after you've blown your wad. Not bad. Not ashamed or guilty or afraid. Sexy. 'Cause you know I love it. I love your body. I love your gorgeous dick. I love thinking about you coming. I love watching you come. I think it's so hot, Kurt – you're so hot. You're the hottest, sexiest boy in the universe. Do you hear that you have your Dom's permission to be turned on? That you don't have to ever apologize for being excited?"

"Yes," Kurt said thickly. His throat was tight with arousal.

"It's really okay with me. You know that, right?"

"Yes."

"If you get turned on at something, anything, whether that's getting your neck kissed or, um, boobs, or those... blue creatures from Avatar, it's okay with me. If something isn't your thing, it's okay with me, too, and you don't have to like stuff I like. Is what I'm saying clear to you?"

"Yes... maybe," Kurt managed.

"Do you have questions?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Ask me."

"I want to obey you and feel good, but I don't want to come without your permission," Kurt blurted. He was somehow so glad his eyes were closed.

"Are you afraid I'll be mad?"

Kurt nodded.

"Have I ever gotten mad at you for coming?" Blaine asked him gently.

Face pulling tight into thought, Kurt carefully remembered every time he'd been allowed to come with Blaine. Since he hadn't come except in his own sweatpants in the middle of the night for months, they definitely stuck out to him.

Most of them had been the day Blaine had collared him. The first time, Kurt had been on his knees on Blaine's bed, face against the mattress, and Blaine had told him to touch himself, and Kurt had desperately asked if he could come because he was so worried he was going to without permission. After that Blaine had touched him and... told him to. Permission granted. Then Blaine had fucked him, and even though it was so hazy in Kurt's brain it seemed like it had happened while he was drunk or something, Kurt remembered coming again all over that furry bedspread, and the hot sloppy feel of the fur sticking to his belly. It had been completely without permission, his whole body and mind in ecstasy, not any of it under his control except for the religious way he was making sure to keep touching the headboard. Blaine hadn't been mad, but he had noticed. He had said something. He'd asked Kurt if he'd come getting fucked like a good boy and made Kurt answer. Then Kurt had nearly just blacked out.

In the nurse's closet, Kurt had tremblingly warned Blaine; he hadn't meant to ask for permission. He was a little scared and ashamed and still didn't know how he'd gotten in that state. But Blaine had told him he could come and he went off like a firecracker. The next day Blaine had teased him more purposefully, told him he could be hard and told him he could come if he wanted, but Kurt had still made sure to say please, just because he had to be sure and he couldn't help wanting to ask. And on Sunday, Blaine had encouraged him to get himself off – but even alone, Kurt had still pleaded for it.

Slowly, Kurt shook his head, then muttered, "No?"

Blaine's hand cupped his jaw, warm and familiar.

"I will never get mad if you come," he said. "If there's ever a situation where I've told you that you can't, and you do anyway, the only way I'd ever be mad is if you were like, 'I don't care what he says, I'm going to get off anyway.' Then I would be hurt. I would probably feel mad because it would feel like you were ignoring me and disobeying me on purpose. But I don't expect that to ever happen, because I know you. I know that you want more than anything to be my good boy. I know that accidents happen. I know you might have a wet dream, or maybe... well. There's other things that could happen. But I promise, I will be very, very clear with you if I ever put you in a situation where blowing your load is not allowed, and I will do everything in my power to help you be obedient. Do you understand the difference between what would make me mad in that situation and what wouldn't?"

"Maybe... yes," said Kurt, tiny.

"Tell it to me in your words."

"It's okay if it's on accident. It's not okay if it's on purpose."

"Ah. Good. Very good. And much more succinct than my little speech."

Kurt pinched his lips together.

"Do you have another question?"

"Yes."

"Hm. Okay. Is it related to that?"

"Maybe?" Kurt faltered.

"Ask."

"Can I ask you anyway?"

"... The question?"

"No. If I can come. Can I ask you."

There came a silence, and before it could get very long, Kurt babbled on anxiously.

"Sorry – I really get what you're saying. I understand when it'd make you mad and I get that you'll help me. Thank you – thank you. If this is selfish and you don't like it, I won't do it anymore, I promise. Just please tell me if I can ask you, as my Dom. I – feel good asking you if – it's okay, even if it is, even if sometimes I... might... come before I can ask..."

"Yes, Kurt," said Blaine, fingertips scritching behind Kurt's ear slowly. "I hear you, and yes. You can ask me for permission to come anytime you want, unless I've told you in advance that you can't ask. Or if you're gagged, 'cause I won't be able to understand you."

Kurt's chest clutched awkwardly over his exhale. ... Gagged?

Through the shock ringing in him, he heard Blaine add, "You do know that if you ask for my permission, you run the risk of my saying no, right?"

"Yes," he wheezed. "I like... that. I like you saying what to do. It – just makes me feel like I'm doing good and... being a good sub... to make sure..."

"Mm!" said Blaine, as if this was an unexpected revelation. "I understand. I'm impressed you asked me that, Kurt. It was a good question and so honest. It's very subby of you to want to do as I say and to practically beg me to take so much control over you."

Squeaking, Kurt trembled, riding out a wave of some of the strangest inner pleasure he'd ever felt. It was arousal, but came from so deep it didn't seem to really feel connected to his twitching hard-on. His hips rolled pointlessly, even though he wasn't trying to get off or rub his dick against the cotton layers keeping it covered. He just felt it so bodily it seemed to take over his limbs. Blaine's knee flexed, pinning one of Kurt's down, and Kurt tried to shiver out of the weird wriggle, slamming his curling leg back down and tightening his fingers into the bedspread. After a few desperate seconds, he scraped himself together, going limp again, brain absolutely fuzzy.

"Angel?" his Dom whispered.

"Yes," Kurt breathed, voice embarrassingly close to a puberty squeak.

"... Do you need to come?"

Kurt didn't even consider it. "No."

"Oh. Then do you have to pee?"

"No."

"Just had to wiggle?"

"Yes."

"Are you getting antsy?"

"Maybe...?"

"Tell me how you feel right now, then."

"Happy," Kurt breathed.

"Happy?" Blaine echoed. Kurt could hear him smiling. "So that was a happy fit just now?"

"Yes..."

Warmth touched Kurt's bare shoulder; Blaine's cheek. His hand slid gently down Kurt's throat and followed his sternum, petting him over the flutter of his heart. It wasn't thudding around with the Kurte extreme adrenaline as earlier. Something in Kurt was very calm even though he was submerged so totally in arousal that it felt like he was twenty thousand leagues under the sea. His thighs flexed a few times, like his body wanted to roll and writhe in another happy fit, but Blaine's cuddle anchored him gently, and he calmed again after a minute.

"I'm going to get up, Kurt," Blaine finally murmured. "I'm not leaving the room. I want you to lie here just like this for me. Wiggle as much as you want to. Just stay on your back, keep your hands at your sides, and keep your eyes closed. Can you do that?"

"Yes," Kurt said unthinkingly. He did kind of wonder what Blaine was pulling himself away for, but it also wasn't his place to question it, and Blaine had given him directions to follow. He felt the mattress dip lightly as Blaine sat up and slid off the bed, leaving Kurt on it, in the spotty dark of his dropped eyelids.

With the anchor gone, Kurt's cord to the present unwound wildly within a matter of seconds. He was so used to floating off that he did it immediately, thoughts soaring into a crazy jumbled stratosphere. Total permission to be aroused as often as he was. Permission to jack off whenever he wanted. Permission to ask Blaine if he could come – to behave and – need him – and submit if he was denied. Kurt's hips lifted again, body flexing uselessly and flopping again. Maybe it was a happy fit. Kurt didn't have any better words for it. He just knew he wasn't shifting around out of boredom or discontent. He was so content it didn't even seem he'd ever felt actual contentment before. He was collared. Safe. Maybe he was going kind of crazy.

"Kurt," said Blaine, his voice across the room. "If I ask you a question, you'll answer me honestly, won't you."

"Yes," Kurt half-groaned.

"Do you really want to suck my dick?"

If it wasn't for Blaine's instructions, Kurt would've rocketed off the bed and hit some kind of celestial bell like the hand of God had slammed the mattress.

"Yes," he gasped.

"So you... think about doing it...?"

"Yes, all the time," Kurt almost sobbed, although he jerked bodily realizing he'd said more than Blaine's rule allotted for him.

"I'll let you open your eyes in a second," Blaine said, obviously noticing his infraction. "But you have my permission to answer me thoroughly on this."

"I'm sorry," Kurt said helplessly, his eyes squeezed shut so hard everything looked like fireworks somehow. "I just – yes. I think about it – every day."

"Do you think about being on your knees?"

Kurt's legs jerked. "Yes."

"You can open your eyes now, sweetie."

Kurt did, blinking as his vision swam and struggled to suddenly take in more light and color and stimuli, dragging his focus around. He sought out Blaine as soon as he could think straight and saw him leaning against his wooden dresser, playing with a gray bandana that had some kind of orange stuff printed on it. It slid, light and silky, over and between his fingers. Kurt could see the empty sliver of mirror where it had been hanging alongside a bunch of others.

"Come here," said Blaine, eyelashes flicking seductively.

Kurt's body moved immediately; he was hardly inside it, so he was squirming off the bed really clumsily and staggering to Blaine already before he seemed to get a little control back to his limbs. Could he – could he get on his knees now...?

"Turn around," Blaine commanded.

When he did, Blaine grasped at his wrists from behind him, thumbs sliding hotly over the black leather belts that rode over the camo print cuffs.

"We're going to try a little something," Blaine said.

"Yes," Kurt agreed in a breath.

"Hands behind your back," Blaine instructed, not leading him, but following him closely, hands light on Kurt's cuffs as his arms moved and the backs of his hands bumped together awkwardly. He clenched his hands together, wondering if Blaine was maybe inspecting him. It wasn't until he felt his cuffs overlapping slightly that it hit Kurt: cuffs... handcuffs... this was how people stood when they got arrested...

Silk slipped ticklesomely over his fingers, and Kurt just about fainted. He wanted to say his Dom's name and knew it wasn't against the rule, since wasn't in play anymore, but he couldn't even speak out of utter shock. He just pulled in a massive gasp and heard Blaine exhale softly in response, feeling the breath on his back as silky as the scarf was against his fingers.

"If this is uncomfortable," said Blaine, "you're allowed to tell me, and I'll untie you."

"Oh my God," Kurt whispered, eyes squeezing shut.

"Do you promise you'll tell me if it's uncomfortable?"

"Yes – I just –"

He couldn't finish. He had no words. Blaine was actually tying him up? Like... like the rope pictures...? This decorated scarf, which he was pretty sure he'd seen Blaine wear to school at least once, seemed a far cry from the complicated binding, and he could feel that rather than wrapping it around his wrists totally, Blaine was simply linking his cuffs together by threading it through their D-rings. But still, the idea that he warranted so much thought made Kurt's legs feel like gummy worms. He wasn't worthy, he thought wildly. He wasn't worthy of the fuss, of the deliberation.

"There," Blaine said affectionately. "That's real, one hundred percent silk Alexander McQueen you're wearing. If you need to, you can wiggle your arms, but don't you dare rip it. If you want out of it, you have to ask."

"Thank you," gasped Kurt, completely stunned.

"Kneel," returned Blaine.

It sounded like a dare and Kurt had no idea why. He was dropping onto his knees forcefully, gratefully, flexing tense because he didn't know whether to simply be on his knees or if he could sit back on his calves, and blinked at the nearby bed, trying to process the fact that Blaine was probably looking at him. Looking at his restrained wrists, his arms held back. His fists bunched. However Blaine had tied him up, that was enough for him to tell that he had an inch or so of wiggle room, which seemed like a lot, but despite his actual excitement, some sense of fight-or-flight kicked in when his body realized it wasn't completely free, and he actually found himself struggling for a few seconds before stilling himself, not wanting to stretch or damage the scarf Blaine had entrusted him with.

"Yeah," Blaine breathed. "Okay. I'm beyond ready for my little sub's mouth now. See if you can turn around, Kurt."

Twisting, Kurt had squirmed around with relative ease, his center of balance taking a bit of a hit, but he was so tense he easily caught himself before he could sway over this way or that, and strained up taller as he gazed up at Blaine, who was still leaning back against the dresser, this time with his hands casually eased back onto the flat surface. Kurt was tall on his knees, which just meant dropping his eyes to Blaine's zip was super obvious, but he was so beyond caring. Blaine knew he wanted this. Kurt wanted him to know just how much.

"Please, Blaine," he whispered, looking up at Blaine again with serious eyes. Smiling at him smugly, Blaine cupped Kurt's cheeks, and Kurt felt it worth repeating. "Please."

"I guess you need a hand, since yours are tied behind your back," Blaine teased.

"Yes," Kurt breathed, getting a massive kick of arousal and embarrassment and gratitude. "Please help... please – let me –"

"I know you've been waiting," Blaine said, pale hands sliding from Kurt's face to unfasten the button on his pants. Kurt huffed, needy, scooting in closer on his knees. He made a noise of disappointment when Blaine didn't immediately follow with the zip, instead thumbing his suspenders off his shoulders one by one and pulling his arms from them. Blaine made a little noise of sympathy that Kurt didn't think was very real, which made him feel so pathetic and hot. "Tsk. I know. You've been imagining it. You've been begging. Don't worry. I'm gonna let you have it."

Blaine seemed determined to be slow – either that or Kurt's mind was basically Madonna's "Ray of Light" video – and Kurt knew it was because he could, and Kurt would just have to wait, so in the few beats where he stared at Blaine's fingers guiding his zip down, he squirmed his shoulders, feeling his wrists catch against the silk binding them together. He was on absolute tenterhooks as Blaine eased his trousers down and reached into the fly of his tight-fitting black boxer-briefs. The color of them wasn't really anything to Kurt until Blaine actually pulled his dick out and it looked stark pink against them.

Kurt's eyes shot up to his Dom's face, registering the fact that his mouth had slipped open, and dropped again, his chest intense. Like on Friday, Blaine stroked himself a few times, like this massive tease. Kurt couldn't look away any more. Even if he couldn't touch Blaine, jerk him off like on Friday, and even if Blaine for some reason changed his mind right then about letting Kurt blow him, he could look – he could still have this much.

"C'mere, honey," he finally murmured, kindly, and inhaled sharply as Kurt just buried his face right up against that hot pink cock with its delicate skin and heady mouth-watering private smell that was deeply Blaine. The smell of his Dom's arousal had become part of Kurt's very being; he remembered it and was flooded with that shaky excitement. I've never been so hard... A hundred percent... All because of you. He shuddered from the core up, turned on at the feel of it stiff against his cheek and nose and mouth, but more than that, worshipful and grateful. Blaine laughed breathlessly. "Is that what you've been after?"

Grunting ecstatically, Kurt flexed, rearing up, lips dragging against the side of Blaine's cock. It escaped him, slipping off his cheekbone, then smacking him gently on the cheek. Turning his face, he just opened his mouth around it and tried to suck his way up to the tip. It would've been much easier if he'd had just one hand free and could have lead it into his mouth, but he didn't, and Blaine had returned his hands to the dresser just behind him.

"You can do it," he breathed, sounding amused, then hissed as Kurt gave up trying to both nuzzle it and suck it and started licking it instead, tasting its musky skin. Dizzily, he lapped up with his tongue broad and pushing, glancing up just enough to see Blaine's head tilt back for a second before he got it together and looked down at Kurt, too. It was so strangely connective a look that Kurt felt his spazzy edges calm and come to attention, and the words seemed to become true and supportive. Eager to prove him right, Kurt reined in that manic frenzy and curved his tongue, bobbing his head to slide it down the back of Blaine's cock and up again, rubbing wet and warm until the shaft was slick with his spit and Blaine was whispering, "Ah. Kurt. That feels amazing."

The rings on Kurt's cuffs clinked lightly as he squirmed, moaning pleadingly at Blaine. Elation was beading up in him, welling slowly. This was what he wanted. Almost. It was really close, and felt so good.

Finally, cursing his initial impatience, he backed off just enough for gravity to bring him Blaine's knob. Staring at it, he licked up the glans delicately and listened to his Dom catch his breath, shocked.

"Kurt," he breathed.

Kurt hit something, then. Something inside him. That something that was deep and calm and didn't fight or struggle against the tug of arousal or the pressure in his belly or the restraint of his arms. He blinked up at Blaine slowly and managed to hold the head of Blaine's dick right on the pillow of his lower lip, tongue sliding around the softest, smoothest flesh and feeling the tender cleft where his slit was. It felt so good in every way to Kurt – and that it felt good to Blaine, too, who clutched at the dresser and let out a huffing breath that was unlike anything Kurt had heard except for right when Blaine was coming, was like a whole other level of happiness.

Trying to be careful about his teeth, he bowed his mouth into a ring and bobbed gently around Blaine's dick, wishing he could steady himself with his hands but almost honored that Blaine thought he was capable of doing this without a kickstand. It made him that much more careful and purposeful as he worked his neck, feeling his lips slide over the rim of that soft knob and become familiar with it. His tongue couldn't help caressing that ridge, clumsy. That got him a gasp. Kurt's focus then became seeing if he could do things that made Blaine breathe hard or make a noise, the rest of him in a distant trance of rapture.

Finally. Finally. Finally he was being allowed to have Blaine's cock in his mouth again. Finally, he was being allowed to have this pleasure; finally, he was getting to serve. He kind of felt like he could come at any second, but knew he wasn't going to. It wasn't quite like that. It was bigger. Better. Sucking Blaine's dick, rolling him between clumsy lips and dripping spit out the side of his mouth and knowing each coaxing pull of his mouth was making his Dom feel good and that he was on his knees servicing with all the dedication he had, was better than his vague fantasies. Blaine made it better. Blaine... he wanted Blaine so much...

He found himself leaning in closer, almost tipping over right onto Blaine, mouth easily but hungrily taking Blaine in deeper, his eyes only mostly closed and not really even seeing what his lashes blurred because he didn't care about anything but Blaine's hands moving to touch his shoulders and that cock stuffing his mouth.

"I'm gonna come," Blaine groaned tensely, his voice high and sweet. "I don't wanna – I wanna let you suck me off forever –"

Kurt whined. This was such a good idea, he wanted to beg.

"You're so good," Blaine told him. "You're so good, Kurt. Fuck. I'm gonna fucking come. You want it in your mouth, sub?"

Squirming, Kurt huffed against Blaine's belly. He knew his wrists could not get free. That he could not pull them apart without harming Blaine's scarf. But some thrill had him clanking anyway, shoulders lifting in jerks against Blaine's fingers.

"I can't believe this," Blaine uttered. "God, I can't believe this. Kurt. Uh – Kurt..."

Kurt felt Blaine tensing hard against the dresser, felt the meat of his cock thicken impossibly, and squeaked in utter happiness as Blaine's come spattered in his mouth. Carefully, he drew his lips up to the tip and felt it throb around another three or four loads, which slid on his tongue to the back of his mouth. His swallowing reflex was automatic. He gulped down the hot mouthful without thinking.

"God," Blaine said loudly. "You swallowed all that come I gave you, huh, sweetie?"

"Mm," Kurt acknowledged around the tip of Blaine's dick, hoping that was all right.

"Good boy!" his Dom breathed, sounding struck. "God!"

Kurt was too far-gone to smile. He just stayed still for a few long moments, listening to Blaine breathe these indignant-sounding huffs, and as Blaine's dick began to soften and pull between his lips, he gave a final gentle suck and let it go, burying his forehead against Blaine's hip slavishly with the wet heat of Blaine's dick caressing his cheek. He could feel that his chin and neck were coated with thickened spit and didn't want to get it on Blaine's clothes. A hand tangled in Kurt's hair, and for a minute, Kurt just existed in a space created by Blaine's heaving breaths.

"Good boy," Blaine whispered, his voice curling. He sounded like he was talking to a dog or a little kid, but Kurt responded hard, moaning. "That's my good boy. Did that make you happy?"

Kurt tried to say "yes," but his mouth didn't move in time to make his groan into a word. It was a little buzzy and numb, and his jaw was aching. Even so, he would have been happy to suck Blaine off again right then if he wanted. Kurt would suck his cock forever.

"Can you sit up straight on your knees?" Blaine asked him with a gentle caress of his hair.

Huffing, Kurt pulled his face from Blaine's leg, sat back on his calves, and then straightened up again, lifting obediently.

"Perfect," Blaine said. He was fastening his pants and Kurt kind of wanted to cry seeing him do it, but he still felt happy, since Blaine had unbuttoned them in the first place and let Kurt have his dick in his mouth. "Yes or no – can you stand?"

"Yes," Kurt breathed.

"I want you to stand and turn around. Show me your cuffs. Show me the scarf."

Body a little heavy, Kurt took a second to get ahold of his core and rock a knee up so he could stand, but as he did, he turned and presented eagerly, praying his squirming hadn't damaged Blaine's scarf. He didn't want it to have been ruined and he didn't want to have disobeyed even on accident, but most of all, he didn't want Blaine to think he couldn't tie his submissive's wrists back anymore.

"Is it okay?" he asked with his tired mouth.

He felt Blaine's fingers pulling at the scarf and hung his head, feeling so compulsively respectful and reverent to what Blaine had done to him.

"Looks good to me," said Blaine, and laughed lowly. "Very good. Do your arms hurt?"

"No. Kinda weird, being back. Doesn't hurt."

"Is that the truth?"

"Honest truth," Kurt said.

"It's not that I don't believe you," Blaine assured him, giving his forearms a rub and resting his cheek on Kurt's slightly arched shoulder. "It's just that I don't want to overexert you. I'd rather untie you now than regret tying you up later. Got it?"

"Got it."

"Good boy. I'll untie you soon, but if you get uncomfortable before I do, tell me."

"I promise."

"Good. I'm holding you to that promise. For right now... stand still while I get you naked."

His arms reached around Kurt's and opened Kurt's jeans much faster than he'd opened his own pants. Kurt was too amazed.

"Naked," he whispered.

"Yu-u-up," said Blaine lasciviously, and bent behind him, fingers catching both the waistband of Kurt's briefs and his jeans and pulling them right down his legs.

Kurt's dick sprung up, heavy and red. He was almost spine-chillingly aroused, but it didn't seem to really be central to his dick anymore. He looked down at it, getting a wave of self-consciousness so close on the heels of the wonderment of sucking Blaine's cock and floating in all the praise that it felt weirdly external to him. What seemed to matter more was just the fact that his wrists were still bound and he could kinda feel the tickle of silk on his bare butt.

"Do you know what I'm gonna have you do now, sub?" Blaine asked, standing and squeezing at Kurt's elbows. Without waiting for an answer, he pushed at Kurt, who trudged forward with the ring of his jeans caught around his ankles.

"Uh," Kurt let out. He couldn't really think if that was a question that had an answer he was supposed to guess. It felt a little like his ankles were tied, too. He made it the few steps over to the bed like that, caught at ankle and wrist.

"Knee up on the bed," said Blaine.

Lifting his foot out of his jeans and kicking clumsily out of his underwear, Kurt obeyed. Blaine's hands were helpfully bracing him at each arm, keeping him balanced.

"Now your other knee."

Kurt kneed; now he was on his knees on the edge of the bed. His jeans were caught around his ankle. Blaine took care of it.

"You're quite a sight," Blaine informed him.

He appeared at Kurt's side, then, and unfurled something with a dramatic flourish right in front of him. It was the dark furry bedspread, stained with his come in two different places, and Blaine was laying it out on the bed right before Kurt. Kurt stared at it, stunned. So he had ruined it. But Blaine had kept it. He turned his stupefied stare onto Blaine, who smirked and slid around the bed to take him by the biceps again.

"Forward march, soldier. Left, right, left. And halt. Now bend over. Cheek to the bed. You know the drill, don't you, cutie."

At this point, Kurt was coming right back into himself, his face painfully hot as he tried to obey, thunking without grace against the furry spread and nearly falling over. With his arms struggling to try and help him but actually just making it worse, his knees spread automatically to tripod him in place, and he was glad he didn't go over, but... somehow he felt even more on display than last time he'd done this. Instead of his arms bearing any weight or balance or even just giving him comfort, his left shoulder was taking the fall. He was glad it wasn't his right, which he'd dislocated in the first football game of the season. Still, his face was, like, two inches from a dried patch of come-stained fur and he felt crooked and on display and utterly powerless and – a little afraid, but in that weird, good way where he didn't have control over it either way and all he wanted to do was obey.

"Good job, Kurt. Does it hurt with your arms back?"

"No," he whispered. "Just weird."

"Hmm, I bet. You hold still for me. This will just take a second."

Blaine moved away from him and Kurt heard him doing – something mysterious.

"Do you realize you broke my rule earlier?" Blaine asked from several feet away.

"Yes," Kurt said, stomach twisting. He knew exactly what Blaine was talking about.

"I know you didn't mean to. You were just excited, weren't you, sweetie."

"Yes, Blaine – I didn't mean to, I swear. But I'm so sorry, anyway," Kurt said, his intensity not at all muffled by his cheek smushed uncompromisingly into the mattress. "I'm sorry for breaking the rule. I got too excited. I wasn't thinking."

"I know, honey. I'm going to have to punish you. It was a rule, after all. But it was just a little temporary one. So you only get a little temporary punishment."

"Yes, Blaine," Kurt said again. His face was aching. With his bare ass up in the air like this, arms bound, all he could do was accept his fate. There was something scary about it, but he also felt more and more like Blaine's sub with each experience they had together and he really, really wanted that feeling. He deserved punishment and wanted Blaine to exert full control in every way.

Blaine hummed. "I admit, I haven't actually thought of a good punishment for you. I refuse to spank you, even though it is quite tempting with your little Coppertone baby butt cheeks peeking right at me. I'd enjoy it way too much."

"Anything you want," Kurt wheezed, feeling his ass clenching, fully visible to Blaine's eyes, anyway.

"Okay," Blaine said. A second later, there was a sound Kurt actually recognized. It was a click. Like a shutter. A loud, fake shutter on an iPhone. Blaine continued, "Oh, perfect. What did Artie call it? A portrait of unlikely domination? That sounds about right."

Kurt's face buzzed. He was pretty sure Blaine had just taken a picture of him... and he had no idea how to feel. Mortified, yes. But what was the punishment? Was that it?

"Blaine?" he asked, faint.

"Yes, honey," said Blaine brightly.

"What was that?"

"I took a picture."

"F... for Facebook?" Kurt wondered, which was probably the worst case scenario he could think of.

"Oh, God, no," said Blaine. "It's for me, Kurt. Just for me. Won't I be a happy Dom when my sub calls me and a picture like that pops up on my screen?"

Kurt turned his face right into the bed and groaned. He guessed it was a pretty good punishment. Only, it... really turned him on to think that a picture of him naked and tied up and hard would be his ID picture on his Dom's phone. God, what was wrong with him? That kind of stuff was not cool! Pictures were forever once they were digital! What if Blaine mistakenly uploaded it to Facebook or texted it to, like, Mercedes or somebody on accident? What if Blaine's phone was stolen? Then it wouldn't be a temporary punishment at all! Feeling his arms flex with some distress, Kurt whimpered into the furry bedspread. His cuffs bumped awkwardly. He had no choice; he'd brought it on himself. Wow. He belonged to Blaine so utterly. So totally. It was a punishment and he knew it, and felt reprimanded, but somehow it fulfilled him, too; he didn't get why at all, but he felt grateful.

"I bet you'll be careful next time I give you a rule," Blaine commented.

"Yes, Blaine," Kurt muffled into the mattress. He fervently meant it.

"There, there, sweetie," said Blaine, coming back toward him. He let out a thoughtful hum. "Well. That didn't make you go the least bit soft, did it."

"So –" Kurt got out, trying to apologize for his disobedient dick, but he lost the word to a sharp moan when Blaine's fingers rubbed against it, hanging stiffly beneath his belly. The caress almost hurt, he'd been hard for what felt like so long, but the nudge of knuckles was gentle, too. Totally independent of his brain, his arms yanked, wanting to come down and give him more balance and support, but they couldn't come down, and the shot of adrenaline made him squirm even further, excited.

"Just wait a minute and I'll let you free, Kurt," Blaine murmured, the backs of his fingers sliding back and forth against Kurt's dick. He could feel Blaine's body heat against the backs of his thighs and let out an incoherent noise. "Just one minute..."

Something wet and warm touched him between his ass cheeks, where he was unfairly vulnerable, and Kurt strained, groaning. For an absolutely insane beat he thought it was Blaine's tongue, but it wasn't, it was his thumb, sliding over Kurt's hole and stroking at his taint.

"Blaine," he whispered desperately. "Blaine, please!"

"Ask me, sub," Blaine told him, and Kurt knew he'd asked for this, but it still took him a second to choke it out.

"Can I come – please –"

"Yeah. Yeah, you can come. Oh. There you go. That's good. Good boy, Kurt."

Kurt saw stars, which was weird, given his eyes were open, but he felt like he was shooting himself right into space. He was aware of the clench of his balls, of his abs and chest getting doused again and again with wads of come that dripped right off him and into the furry blanket under him, but it felt deeper and like it took up the whole room, like the air around him was orgasming with him. He was totally making noise, weak cries that turned into Blaine's name, but he also felt disconnected from his voice. His arms tingled. His face pounded. As it receded, it seemed to drain from the room back into his body and he said, "Oh – Blaine –" in an almost serene bliss, dick bobbing with its deep jerks.

"Are you with me, Kurt?" Blaine asked. There was pulling at his wrists. Blaine was untying the scarf.

"Uh," Kurt said blankly. "Blaine."

"I got you, buddy."

Kurt's arms fell limp to his sides, and Kurt slumped over, too. It took him a few beats to realize Blaine had tipped him on purpose, holding his right cuff to keep his arm out from under him and managing to roll him over onto his back. For a second, he saw Blaine super-clearly, his biceps flexed underneath his henley and that one button on it undone. Then he closed his eyes. It seemed like he floated for a while, but then it also didn't seem like very long until Blaine spoke up, murmuring very close to his ear.

"Kurt. Are you okay?"

"Yes. I'm okay," Kurt said.

His Dom pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek.

"I'm gonna let you rest for a few minutes."

Kurt let out a very agreeable noise.

*

Kurt's internal clock was kind of wonk, especially since he had actually fallen right asleep, but when Blaine put a hand on his shoulder, it felt to him like about twenty minutes had passed.

"Sweetie," he whispered, filling Kurt's head with a flood of warmth and adoration. "Do your arms hurt?"

"No," Kurt murmured.

"Oh, good, I'm glad. But I'm going to rub them a little anyway," Blaine told him.

Kurt nodded, bemused.

Blaine continued, "I'm going to take your cuffs off you. But when I'm done, I'll put them back on you."

"Okay," Kurt said shyly, opening his eyes. The thought of Blaine seeing him uncollared was... almost weird. Even though he and Blaine had been kind of together for a couple months, and Kurt had only been collared for a week, he had worn them every second of every day that he wasn't in the shower, and he'd never, like, been with Blaine like this without them on his wrists.

Bustling, Blaine went over to his white stereo and pushed play on the iPod sitting in it, then came back over and began prying open the belt on Kurt's left cuff. Some kind of music piped in at such a low volume that Kurt couldn't identify what kind of music it even was, but its beat seemed soft. He blinked, watching Blaine unwrap his wrist from his camo-print cuff, then looked around the room curiously, realizing that while he'd been asleep, Blaine had drawn his curtains shut. Kind of like the papered window in the nurse's closet, the curtains themselves weren't enough to shut out the light totally. It let enough through to still see things. But it was darker than earlier and Blaine had lit a couple of small pillar candles and had a bunch of little floating tea lights in a clear bowl of water on his dresser, and Kurt could smell them, so they must have been scented. They smelled good in a cool, unidentifiable but pleasant way. Their flames were steady, reflected in the lower half of the dresser mirror.

"Candles?" Kurt asked.

"Mm-hmm! It's spa time," Blaine told him, smiling and pulling his right cuff off.

"Wow," Kurt whispered. He was genuinely confused and spellbound at the Kurte time. And his wrists were kinda cold.

After pushing his own sleeves up, Blaine took Kurt's left arm, pulling it and laying it out straight at his side. Then he picked up a little white bottle with a green label and pump at the top, pressed out a little squirt of lotion or something, and rubbed his hands together, looking at Kurt very intently. Once he seemed satisfied with his hands, he bent and pushed his thumbs into the muscle of Kurt's forearm gently.

Kurt exhaled; Blaine was pushing tension he didn't even know he had right up his arm, lubricated slightly by soft-feeling lotiony fingers and working at his muscle against the grain of his arm hair. He didn't really think he was sore from having his hands behind his back for a little while, but it felt good anyway, Blaine touching him. All stacked up, the relaxing light and interesting scents and old-fashioned lady singer music added up to what seemed like a lot of fuss for a sub who had also just gotten punished.

"I don't deserve a spa," he said, amazed.

Blaine countered, "Yes, you absolutely do. And I deserve to massage my sub's calendar boy arms so I don't worry about them all night. I don't want you to be sore. I saw the way you wouldn't lean on your right shoulder."

"That's just habit," Kurt said self-consciously, letting out another exhale as Blaine's thumbs traveled up his arm in deeper, more confident rubs. "It's fine now..."

"Still. Let me take care of you, sweetie. Sorry, but your Dom is kind of a fussbudget."

Kurt tried to re-frame his thinking. This wasn't a reward for him; this wasn't pampering. This was for his Dom, so he wouldn't worry about his submissive's bum shoulder. Somehow, that made him felt even more taken care of than the idea of being pampered or spoiled.

"Thank you, Blaine," he said, startled by the rise of emotion that made it sort of hard to say.

Blaine gave him a smile. "You're welcome. I'm always going to take good care of you. It's my fave."

Quiet except for some tense breaths, Kurt lay there nakedly on the ruined but still luxurious fur, warm and tingly as Blaine worked his entire arm up and down, inside and out, and even his shoulder, which did actually feel a little sore once Blaine started pushing its muscles around. The air he pulled in smelled so good, clean somehow but tinted with the intimate smell of his own come, and even better than that, he could smell Blaine's gentle exertions and body heat, smell his clothes and skin.

His Dom was happily straddling Kurt's lap, gently rubbing imaginary kinks out of Kurt's right arm, when a song came on that Kurt knew.

"Skeeter Davis," he murmured.

Blaine paused. "Kurt Evans. You shock me sometimes."

"I know that we're wrong, dear, but when I'm with you... I can't help you, darlin', 'cause I'm falling too," Kurt sang, getting quite a pair of wide eyes from Blaine. "C'mon! It's country."

"Oh? It's on my '60s Slow Jams' playlist..."

"It's Grand Ole Opry," Kurt teased. "You should rename your playlist. 'Grand Ole Spa-pry.'"

"You smarty! I'll spank that sass right out of you," Blaine teased back. At least, Kurt thought he must be teasing – but it made him forget the music. Earlier Blaine had said he didn't want to spank Kurt. Not that Kurt wanted to be spanked... but he had a heavy awareness now that he might sort of feel kinda happy in a subby way if Blaine ever did spank him. He had decidedly mixed feelings about the fact that Blaine had a, like, compromising picture of him on his phone. He didn't like it, and yet he did.

He must have had a weird expression on his face, because Blaine said, "Aw, I'm just kidding, honey," and moved effortlessly up to Kurt's shoulder. Like his left, it was more sore than Kurt would have detected on his own, and he let out a groan as Blaine rubbed at it.

"Does that hurt?"

"A little, but – good hurt," Kurt muttered.

"Like stretching?" proposed Blaine.

"Mm."

"This is the shoulder that got dislocated, right? I'll be careful. Tell me if it becomes bad hurt."

"I will," Kurt whispered.

His Dom seemed tentative for a minute, but when Kurt didn't complain or wince, he began to exert more pressure, demanding Kurt's muscles move beneath his skin, and Kurt bit back the pleasure-pain of it.

"Poor sub," Blaine murmured, sensing his response anyway. "We'll have to be careful if we do that again."

"Blaine," blurted Kurt.

"Sorry, did that hurt?" Blaine asked him, hand stilling.

"No – I just – do you..."

Kurt had almost too many connected and complicated questions in his head to make sense out of the array and just pick one. Like, had Blaine liked tying his wrists up like that? Did he like the way it looked, or was it not as good as the rope pictures? Would Blaine want to tie him up again like that if it wasn't? What if he thought Kurt's shoulder was in bad shape? Maybe Kurt could get a doctor's note? What if he thought that Kurt moving his arms so much meant he didn't want to be tied up? And did Blaine not want to spank him at all, ever? Even though he'd threatened for real at least once that he would. It was somehow stuck in Kurt's memory. Kurt knew he wouldn't make anything like that up.

"I'm waiting," Blaine told him gently, thumbs kneading Kurt's deltoid.

"Do you like tied up subs?" Kurt asked quickly. The sentence came out pretty fumbled, and Kurt blinked in some shade of embarrassment as Blaine let out a breathy laugh.

"You know," he said lowly, "I think I do."

Kurt stared up at his face curiously.

Blaine added, "But like I was saying earlier... you don't have to like it just because I do. So we don't have to do that again, especially if it hurt."

"It didn't," Kurt said in a rush. "It didn't hurt. My shoulder's really healed and I can throw and lift with that arm and everything, do push-ups and pull-ups, and I – I can do whatever you want. If you want."

"Oh!" said Blaine. He rubbed at Kurt's shoulder, thumbing his trapezius and rolling the muscle gently.

He didn't say anything else, so Kurt exhaled, dimly mortified, and shut his mouth tight so he wouldn't ask any other dumb malformed questions. He closed his eyes as Blaine placed both hands at the sides of his neck and gave him a little rub-down, fingers insisting that the muscles above his collar bone relax.

"What did you think of me tying you up, then, sub?" Blaine asked him.

The air in Kurt's lungs puffed out of him. His heart was beating kind of hard, but he didn't know why, especially since his body was pretty limp.

"I kind of just threw it at you..." Blaine commented. "I guess I was just feeling really Dommy, watching you squirm around in sub heaven. Ugh, it got to me bad. Watching your body move and your abs flex. I kept thinking, 'Damn, and here I thought my headboard was so chic, but I can't even strap my sub to it.' Just wanted to tie your wrists to it and see what kind of wiggling you'd do then."

"Y – Yes, Blaine," Kurt choked.

"Yes, you'd wiggle?" Blaine teased, stroking lightly at Kurt's pecs.

"Yes. But I wouldn't wanna get away."

"No?"

"No. Never.


End file.
